Sitting in a railway station, got a ticket for my destination. But I am not Homeward Bound. I’m going the other way, to work.
Home would be a 50-minute trek back past banked up snowy ditches, through cheekbone-chilling snowflake swirls and threading my careful, muffled way on cunningly iced paths.
I’ve just completed this journey the other way, braving the Beast from the East — and Storm Emma is not yet a puff of snow-flecked wind.
My train has been delayed — for a second time — and my right Thinsulate glove is off as I scrawl these thoughts with numbed red fingers gripping my feisty old blue Bic biro.
My words actually started out as invisible indentations and I had to scribble wantonly like a two-year-old for a moment until the blue ink finally seeped into the veins of my letters, and the word was made fresh.
The sporadic snowflakes skittering across the slushy cold steel rail tracks have sent for reinforcements, and they are multiplying now and blanketing the platform, which grows whiter and whiter, until the full dazzling polar bear hide of snow has been fully woven.
The biting wind is woo-wooing louder, then softer, occasionally making to raise the roof of my shelter, abating, and repeating.
This caustic wind is ruffling my eyebrows and reddening the bits of my ears not covered by my matching Thinsulate hat.
A crow is cawing and pecking away in a raised triangle of snow on the platform to my left.
It’s survival first, maintaining his very existence in this unforgiving time and place. He quits and he dies. Not a matter of choice really.
How he can find sustenance in this forlorn, mysterious landscape amazes me.
I feel an unlikely kinship with this hardy creature. He is foraging for food, for himself, and maybe for his family. I am foraging too, going to work on this bleakest of days, with the threat of heavier snow and all travel possibilities being reduced to a lottery.
I am a freelance forager and no show means no dough. I’m travelling, boss! I can’t quit either.
I am alone but others have been here before me, all shapes and sizes of boots and shoes imprinted in the frosted snow at my feet. My own hiking boots are etched heavily there too. Each of us going our own way, on our own snowy odyssey, alone or accompanied.
This visitation of variegated white has transformed this familiar landscape into something approximating the snowy wilderness I have sometimes marvelled at on Discovery Channel documentaries.
It’s Christmas card magical only with added cold, wind and sleeting snow.
And there is a weird excitement too in contemplating what has befallen us, and what is to come, the unknowingness engendered by weather that is changing hourly. There is adventure too in this zero-degrees — and falling — Arctic air.
Already there are tales on my phone of supermarket shelves being swept clean of bread, of all things. In this Facebook age, the funny memes and gifs are being tapped out and sent across the icy ether in increasing flurries. Manna from internet heaven for Generation Snowflake.
These amusing vignettes of drunken snowmen, hitch-hiking polar bears, slipping dupes crashing to the icy ground, and armed deliveries of precious bread, bring a smile and solidarity to us pilgrims adrift in this snowy wasteland.
And there are the tales of unexpected positive encounters and many collegiate acts of uplifting kindness. Neighbours who barely speak chatting vivaciously outside as their offspring slip and slide in yelping delerium.
A phone call home paints a cosy picture of a blazing briquette fire, synchronised Snapchat and networked games, while Daddy is gone a hunting.
If and when his train comes. It’s been delayed a second time. Another twenty minutes. And the train will not be going past my stop due to severe flooding at the next station.
O and K have been out pelting snowballs and sliding on improvised toboggans, and now they are indoors again, snuggling down now for endless hours of sanctioned indolence.
Across the tracks in the shelter opposite me, there is a huge glossy poster for a building development at a nearby seaside town.
These things are tweaked to unattainable perfection at the best of times, but now the three sun-dappled children in the photograph, in their skimpy T-shirts and shorts, splashing up to their ankles in the sparkling sea look positively strange.
Foraging for fun, those kids, in this eternal vista of digital perfection.
But I know the town in this poster is far from the seaside paradise being sold in the picture. I think of the lack of proper green spaces in overcrowded estates quickly built in an unlikely boom time of plenty by speculators and builders with little but profit in mind. And a light-touch regulatory approach by the local council to facilitate this disastrous binge. No Photoshopped vistas snapped around there.
The result? Gangs of kids being moved off wisps of public open space and congregating in boredom on street corners, from where the bigger ones begin to menace neighbours and visitors. And are castigated for it, rightly perhaps, but with little real effort to wonder why, and do something positive about it.
Better bring despairing thoughts back to the sleeting wind and blurring snow, and tighten my scarf another notch. Specks of snow are now landing on my notebook, dotting my is, crossing my ts, and punctuating my red-fingered prose with darkening blobs of melted snow. The tannoy rings out and the train has arrived. Only 40 minuteslate.
The real adventure is only beginning.
- If you enjoyed what you have just read, try another one! Try them all! Seriously, follow my blog and you won’t miss out again. Thanks for reading
EndaStories 
Brrrr! Winter is tough! #LGRTStumble
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Well this part of it anyway !
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We got away lightly as didn’t get more than a light dusting of snow, ten miles away the village was completely cut off, a snow day can be fun if you haven’t got to go anywhere #triamphanttales@_karendennis
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Lucky for you — but you also missed out on the fun!! It was also almost the sole topic of conversation nationally for days . Thanks for commenting
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Interesting read….we just had more than a foot of snow last week and are looking at another foot tomorrow so it has become so routine, I almost don’t appreciate it.
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What’s seldom is … often … wonderful. All in all a really interesting experience. And the snow itself was beautiful. Thanks for your observations
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I like your writing 🙂 we had some snow but nowhere near as much as other places, but it makes for a very different atmosphere #TriumphantTales
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Thanks Stuart. It sure was different right enough. Different good mostly! Thanks for your comment
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We were on a beach holiday when the snow arrived… a seriously surreal experience! #ThursdayTeam
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Wow, some beach holiday!!
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Wow! such vivid imagery, I felt I needed a scarf just reading. A crow crowing to stay alive.
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Thanks Mario — hope the weather is better where you are!
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It is amazing how the crow can find the food it needs, I like the way you likened yourself to how it feels, it stops, it gives up and it dies. My husband is freelance to to, it can add such pressure when you are sick or need time away to know you will not bring home the crumbs like the crow. This piece was written with such elegance, you have a real talent! #mg
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Such a lovely thing to say! Thank you so much Mackenzie
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It’s been a pretty mild Winter for the northern part of the states. Even our so-called nor’ easter was not so much of what we normally get but I’m glad of it. We had a week of negative temps back in November and I hated it but overall I can’t complain about the cold this year. #globalblogging
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We live beside the sea and have rarely seen snow but this was the real deal. I got snowed in in Dublin city and could not get home for two days!🏂🏂😔☺
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Wow, that’s crazy but I’m glad you’re safe.
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We’ve been so spoiled here in the Northwest US this winter and our jaws are just dropping at the pounding the UK has been getting from Mother Nature. Hang in there and the warmer days are sure to come! #GlobalBlogging
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We live beside the sea and have rarely seen snow but this was the real deal. I got snowed in in Dublin city, Ireland,and could not get home for two days!🏂🏂😔☺
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We had heavy snow and I went walking to the supermarket too to feed the family great photos mate Thank you for linking to #Thatfridaylinky please come back next week
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Yeah some episode. It turned our familiar country into a steange snow covered wilderness and it was all we could talk about for days👶😱😳
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I loved this! What a great way of describing something that a lot of us went through. I barely left my house for the duration, I was happy in the warm thank you very much. Mind you, after reading that, the heating is on and I still feel like I need an extra layer!! Thanks for sharing at #TriumphantTales.
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Delighted to share. Thanks for your lovely words.
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What a fab read, I could practically have been there. The snow looks so lovey when you are tucked up inside, but out in the slush it’s another story isn’t it. Brrrrrrr!!! Thanks for joining us for the #DreamTeam. I’m so pleased we have all thawed out now.
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It was a strange couple of days alright. You’re right the snow is both lovely and then mushy and slushy when it starts to melt. Thanks for commenting
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It looked very beautiful where you were. We didn’t have a huge amount, but enough for the girls to enjoy (for 5 minutes). It was certainly a great conversation starter and I hear more could be on its way?! Thanks for linking this to #thursdayteam
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Yes it wss really beautiful and the kids did love it ,- especially when they got three days off school!! There could be more. We are having such strange weather!
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I’m impressed you managed to write anything with fingers so cold! Some beautiful imagery in this piece 🙂 #BlogCrush
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Thank you very much Alice
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Your words are so lovely, one can almost, almost, forget how very cold it is. Beautiful. #mg
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Thanks so much Lisa — coming from a fantastic blogger like yourself that’s a compliment to treasure. Thank you!!
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Oh Enda, you are so kind! You are very welcome!
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I feel cold just reading this. Your descriptive prose are excellent.. It’s the start of a novel I think #blogcrush
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Thanks Berni. Good luck with the website/blog change!!
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