Under snow

Some time ago a frontline public library worker said to me, it's like working in mental health.

What she meant was that libraries are an important refuge for people with mental health difficulties, who may have nowhere else to go for much of the day; and a lot of what library staff do now is providing a facility which helps them. It's an under-appreciated role. Libraries are also an important daily checkpoint for many refugees and asylum seekers.

So I applaud the fact that on a day of capital-stopping weather, on which schools were shut without hesitation, at least in my area the libraries were kept open.

Other notes from the day:

Checking up on the NDNs. She offered me table salt for my path.

Apparently the local store opened up as usual, but a small gang gathered to hurl snowballs through the doors at the groceries so they shut for a while.

Some complete plonker driving on packed icy snow, one hand with a mobile phone to his ear, yacking away. As a pedestrian, it's not the conditions, it's prats like that you have to worry about.

Admiring the weak light making the boughs seem green on a hidden path I use, gasping at the clear readiness of landscape.

On my way back from my run I noted a snow-woman, scruffy but still somehow poised and elegant. A minute later cries caused me to turn, to realise she'd been brutishly knocked over by a couple of unthinking lads, embarrassed at their own laughter. Well at least they were outdoors.

Other schoolkids who have not really known snow, rolling down hill together, learning something about innocent collective discovery that will outlast all childhood.

Recalling the winter of '63, slides right across the village pond, birds frozen to wires and frozen milk forcing the caps off bottles that stuck to the step.