The heavy blanket is as much a duvet of silence, as a quilt of whiteness. But the deepening gloom as the sun goes down is not as empty as it might first appear.
The snow vanished as quickly as it arrived, and contrary to all expectations, there were no rotting mammoth carcasses exposed by the thaw. But now it's back again.
All looks still and quiet out there. The heavy blanket is as much a duvet of silence, as a quilt of whiteness. But the deepening gloom as the sun goes down is not as empty as it might first appear. There are things out, but they are moving slowly and cautiously.
A pair of magpies cough their way through the Leyland cypress a few doors down. There are three of four long-tailed tits in next-door-but-one's pear tree. A female blackbird is scavenging for bits of left-over windfall under our apple tree. The squirrels seem thoroughly fed up with it all, and chatter angrily at each other as they flick their way along the fence. Then there is the fox again.
Our garden, it seems, is as much a thoroughfare as ever. I've a house full of coughing and wheezing children at the moment, so none of us has gone out to disturb the snow. But there are tracks up and down the lawn where migratory herds appear to have trampled. As far as I can make out, these are the combined footprints of our two cats, that fox, and several squirrels. They must have made the journey dozens of times.
The fox prints are clearer in our neighbour's garden, down the street. The holes in the snow are neatly laid out in one continuous line, as if the animal is walking some invisible tightrope. Our neighbours the other side have had something completely different going on in their garden. Like us they have a children's trampoline, but whereas ours is still perfectly covered with virgin snow, theirs is completely mushed. I think the foxes have been having a party on it.
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