It’s snowing for the first time this winter. Not particularly hard, yet, but the forecast is for an accumulation of 5cm or more overnight. Considering it logically, that’s not a particularly big deal. The main road will be gritted overnight and ploughed if necessary, and I’ve put salt down on the steep slope onto the drive. I’ve got a fairly important meeting at work tomorrow, but I’ve warned the organiser that I’ll be late if I have to dig myself out, and if it’s too deep they can do without me absolutely fine for one day. The snow shovel is sitting in my porch ready to be deployed, and it’s forecasted to get much warmer tomorrow afternoon so it’s not as if I’ll be snowed in for any length of time.
However, despite all my preparations (including a freezer full of food, a new bag of rock salt and repairing the snow shovel) I’m still feeling extremely stressed about the fact that the snow has started settling on the ground. I reckon that’s a hangover from when Christopher was so ill five years ago, in the middle of the harshest winter for many years. I spent so much time (with the help of my extremely kind neighbours) shovelling snow off the drive day after day, so that there was always room to get an ambulance here – which was vital on several occasions. I’m sure I’m going to have nightmares about that again tonight. I just have to keep reminding myself that this is 2015, not 2010. There’s nobody critically ill in the house, and a few inches of snow are no longer a massive issue.
It’s odd what seemingly trivial things can set off an extremely unwelcome set of memories. Oh well. I shall do my best to admire the beauty of the freshly-fallen snow and try to ignore the flashbacks. And, after all, snow shovelling is very good exercise, should it come to that!
