A Promise

We've had our fair share of snow, photographic evidence of which can be found in my blog, for instance here and here.

This week, things took a dramatic turn temperature-wise when, in less than 48 hours, the thermometer climbed from -9 C (15 F) to +10 C (50 F) - that's right, from 15 to 50! (It somehow sounds more impressive in Fahrenheit).

Now, the only snow left is in ugly greyish-black heaps in the corners of the supermarket's parking lot and along some roads. When I look out from my kitchen window, the view that prompted me to report directly from Winter Wonderland shows a very different picture: bare trees, true, but green grass and brown earth.

During the afternoon, I was out in town, my coat wide open and feeling the sun on my face. When I came back, my living room and my bed room (the one where I so often sit sunbathing on the window sill, as my long-term blog readers will know) were sun-filled and beautiful, and I opened the windows wide to let the warmth and the birdsong in.

At 13 Celsius (it's incredible, isn't it! That is 55 F), this 8th of January already carried a definite hint of spring. The birds were feeling it, too, and when I saw the neighbours' cat down in the small garden that belongs to our house, he was obviously a very happy cat, rolling around on the paved path and rubbing his head against the wooden board that acts as a miniature fence for their tomato beds.

I know that this pre-spring is not going to last. By the middle or end of next week, more snow is expected, and the temperature will drop again.

But for today, I had a promise of spring, and it soothed me.

One day, it will be there, and I will be out again in the sun, legs bare and with no coat, and life will have a lightness about it that I seem unable to achieve during winter.