Bristol is, to possibly coin a phrase, snowfucked. Something about cold air from Russia meeting wet air from France directly over the West Country. Whatever. I woke to find my town clad in five inches depth of soft white cold stuff.

So fun.

There were ominous snowmen half as tall again as a man, looming whitely up on the Downs. There were running battles between entire classes of kids off from school. There were lads coming in all morning shift buying piles of chips and dragging them away on sleighs. There was a bloke who, lacking anything more sledgelike, was cruising downhill on a surfboard. (Godawful puns regarding “cool” abound).

So twenty minutes ago I was wandering the snow-caked depths of the night at stupid hours. It’s a brilliant feeling of isolation. Everything is strangely bright, from the streetlights reflecting on snow; everything is black or white, everything utterly silent.

Snow is the strangest form of precipitation, if like me you’re not used to it. Everything is muffled in it; faces, footsteps, sound. Every other flavour of seasonal falling stuff – rain, hail, even rustling autumn leaves – makes a noise when it touches earth. Not snow. It falls silently, touches down on a muted world. To walk alone through a snowy night is to see a world in silent motion. Unnerving, and coldly [hurr] beautiful.

The snow is chucking down now. Tomorrow looks to be a day of sub-zero lulz.

tl;dr SNOW