Snow - Glorious Snow

"You've read my mind woman. It's like we're one person" - so said the first born to her mother upon hearing there was chocolate to consume after a sumptuous "in-digs" dinner purchased at the fresh food market across the road from our accommodation in Quebec. The weather forecasters here are spot on. Right on schedule the locals got their first proper dump of the season and they were all happy. Notions of global warming were brushed aside as they started to plan their winter fun. Items like a 7km downhill slope to play on did seem enticing. Due to extremely bad timing (weather wise) we headed out of town just as the true winter shenanigans were beginning.

Snow is an amazing phenomenon. It's water but does not behave like it does in the temperate climates. It floats down. It bounces around. Settles for a while and then lifts off to go to another place. Sometimes individually, other times in packs (known as flurries). It sticks to everything. And then sometimes slides off, other times it builds up. There seems to be no order, no rules it just does whatever it wants. And so we four braved the maelstrom. Loaded down with our newly purchased extra baggage we headed off the the bus depot. Some dragging two suitcases others simply snowplowing through the drifts with what they had. Scott of the Antartic had dogs to help get through this stuff - we were on our own. And we had to take photo's whilst doing it. However tough the going was - we did prevail. We'd learnt a few days ago that in olden times the farmers who had nothing to do in winter became lumberjacks, preparing the logs for floating in the spring melt down to the cities where they built the cathedrals out of them. Thus the workers (ne: proles) were always employed for the greater good. It's very apparent that these days there is an entire army of workers in Canada who work tirelessly in winter to scrape and clear the footpaths and roads to ensure life goes on regardless (they are tough, they have it figured out, they know what to do and when) and it's pretty obvious that when global warming stops an entire workforce from being employed for a week or two people start to get edgy. Anyway, thanks to their efficiency, diligence and butt bearing arrogance to the rest of the world the footpaths had already been scraped and we could get through our 500 meter ordeal with no mishaps. Scott had dogs. We had street sweepers.

Apart from a coffee cup exploding at departure time at the bus depot all went smoothly on the trip back to Montreal. Everything covered in snow. All looking magical. Fur trees dripping in the stuff. Cars swamped, fields awash, a total lack of colour wherever you look. and the roads... Still flowing. Can't stop progress. Can't stop people needing to be somewhere else. People like us. Enjoying our delightful quiche slices as we read our novels as we hurtled through the slush on the highways along with thousands of other vehicles.

Arriving at our old familiar residence (cramped but we have been doing this for a long time now, so no problem). We went our desperate shopping ways and then met back at dig central for a home cooked handmade pasta dinner. Brilliant!