Cavendish Statue near the Town Hall
Surrounded on three sides by water when we get an inch of snow in Barrow there will be a foot elsewhere in the north. Yes there is "traffic chaos" in Scotland today with blizzards and airports closed. Rather peaceful here but nobody sitting on the seats, although the nearby cafe had its tables and chairs outside, ready for business in case anyone wanted to admire the new snow while sipping a hot cup of cocoa. Don't know whether they sell cocoa but it is a drink I always associate with winter. Some Thomas Hardy seems appropriate:
Snow in the Suburbs
Every branch big with it,
Bent every twig with it;
Every fork like a white web-foot;
Every street and pavement mute:
Some flakes have lost their way, and grope back upward when
Meeting those meandering down they turn and descend again.
The palings are glued together like a wall,
And there is no waft of wind with the fleecy fall.
A sparrow enters the tree,
Whereon immediately
A snow-lump thrice his own slight size
Descends on him and showers his head and eye
And overturns him,
And near inurns him,
And lights on a nether twig, when its brush
Starts off a volley of other lodging lumps with a rush.
The steps are a blanched slope,
Up which, with feeble hope,
A black cat comes, wide-eyed and thin;
And we take him in.
Thomas Hardy, 1840-1928
