Deep and crisp and even – in Donegal maybe but not on the street where we live
NOT so much ‘ Waiting for Godot’ as ‘ Waiting for Snow’. Maybe Samuel Beckett would have collected a second Nobel Prize had he witnessed a man and a woman with a weather web- site at the kitchen table in The Manor. Actually, that’s not quite how it was. A man, yes. A woman, yes. But it was never just the one weather web- site.
The man may have been happy to rely on a single weather web-site. But the woman hopped from one site to another and back again like, her finger whizzing across the screen of her smart phone. Having a choice of forecasters only served to feed her anxiety.
‘Met Eireann says Thursday. Definitely,’ reported Hermione. ‘Okay, the end of the world is coming on Thursday. I’ll pick up extra loo rolls, tinned sardines and a bag of smokeless when I’m out,’ responded Medders. ‘Best to be prepared.’
‘Ha-ha. It’s not the end of the world, just a snowstorm. I do love a good dose of snow. I hope it sticks this time. Deep and crisp and even, that’s what we want, just like the Christmas carol.’
Medders resumed perusal of a whodunnit about a man shot dead a lift. Hermione resumed her restless swiping.
‘No. YR has it coming on Wednesday. Definitely Wednesday. You’d better fetch that coal now please. And make it salmon rather than sardines? Now. Please. Now!’
‘YR – aren’t they the crowd in Oslo? I suppose, if they come from Norway, they must know something about snow alright.’
‘Exactly!’ she exclaimed, barely keeping the lid on her gathering hysteria. ‘Now off with you to the coal yard.’
‘But it’s only Saturday, dearest.’
‘No. Now.’
‘Let me just finish this chapter.’
‘Now! There’s going to be queues. There’s going to be shortages… and I’ll settle for tuna, if needs be. Off with you.’
Off with him. By the time he returned, dragging a sackful of Polish nuggets, the picture had changed yet again.
‘ The man on the telly reckons Friday. He’s absolutely convinced. Definitely Friday. You need not have been in such a rush to buy the coal after all.’
And so it continued. Web-sites and weather reports. Rushing to the window each morning to check whether the lawn was green or white. Studying meteorological maps of shifting patterns over the Atlantic illustrated in garish shades of blue and green.
The impending blizzard roused contradictory emotions in Hermione. On one hand she dreaded the chaos which a decent fall of snow was bound to bring. On the other she yearned to walk on fresh fallen snow, to make a snowman, to wear sunglasses in the depths of winter.
The yearning tended to win out over the dreading. She seriously suggested moving the length of the country to Donegal, just to be sure to catch whatever snow was going. The prolonged waiting, the endless guessing, the protracted not knowing for sure which threw her mind into turmoil.
In the end it was Saturday when they woke at dawn to hear the utter silence that could only mean one thing. No need to go to the window. At last, the snow.
+ Here is yet another contender for the worst joke ever. The punchline may go back to the days in the century before the birth of Christ when poet Sextus Propertius was all the rage in Rome…
As Valentine’s Day approached, a man prepared to lay siege to a woman’s affections. The man researched the best way of increasing his chances of amorous success.
The sources consulted by the man endorsed chocolate and flowers. They also commended candlelit supper, with appropriate mushy music.
But the overwhelming majority of romance experts in their treatises and doctorates reckoned that alcohol is the most effective stimulator of love. And they were surprisingly specific in recommending one particular drink.
Apparently, good old Sextus was spot on when he (almost) wrote: ‘Absinthe makes the heart grow fonder.’