The Snow It Melts the Soonest

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No matter how old I get it's always very hard not to get excited when the snow starts to fall. There are few reasons for this. Firstly, in British context, as long as the snow keeps falling no one can make you to do something or go somewhere simply because everything goes haywire - public transport, flights and all functions of everyday life are suspended. Secondly, the best thing about snow, other than building snowmen and having snowball fights, is that it has a very magic effect on the dark, dismal and grey environment. Landscapes are completely transformed by snow. Snow can take any building or place and make it beautiful and one really couldn't care less about what's underneath it. But thirdly, it's not just that snow makes the world pretty: snow, by regenerating the world, gives us a feeling of new beginning, of a new, fresh page and also a sense of a second chance. Snow has a cleansing effect - everything gets to be pure. If only for a while.

Last Saturday a snow storm hit London. Immediately when I learned about this on the weather report I felt as if Christmas would come again this winter. I had hoped for some snow: a chance to see London in purgatory cleansing itself from the old sins of dirt and smut. And as soon as I saw snow coming down onto the Gower Street I run out to the streets. I met my friend Ville in the Golden Eagle pub for some Cornish ale and as soon as the amount of snow outside the window on the crepuscular street was getting closer to my rather optimistic expectations we started to roam the dark streets of London.

But these streets had now become something completely different: this London I saw had hardly anything in common with that Victorian Gothic London I had known so far. I forgot all about Messrs. Todd, Hyde, Grey and Ripper and saw, or though that I saw, the Dickensian London with the ghosts of Marley and of Christmas Yet to Come. I entered into a completely new realm. Here are some of my best pictures from the evening walk in Westminster and from my morning walk in Hampstead and Highgate:

1. Buckingham

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                                           2. Westminster
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3. Victoria

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4. Boudica

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5. Booths at Thames

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6.Bloomsbury

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7. Hampstead Park

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8. Hampstead Heath

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9. Winter larking on the Heath

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10. Snowman

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11. East Highgate Cemetery

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12. West Highgate Cemetery

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By now this winter wonderland has disappeared with the usual warm climate stepping in. But on Sunday morning, while walking around the East Highgate Cemetery and in Waterlow Park in complete solitude amongst the white landscape, I experienced, if only for a moment, the sincere and boundless joy - the one I so strongly connect with childhood. Indeed snow has a cleansing effect. All, everything gets to be pure! Not just the landscape and our environment but we, ourselves, can recollect something of our innocence. My only hope and wish remains that if we do find it, if we really do reach it - we should try not to lose it again. Even if the snow does melt soon.

Yours sincerely,

-Stefan

PS. Here's a piece of English winter lore for you:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubVbIzGX4x4&feature=related (traditional one)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mwg2cBBDn3o (contemporary one)