A few pictures for the start of winter

Typically the snow here doesn’t stay. It falls, it melts, maybe in January and February we will have a few weeks of solid snow. This year, it’s come early. In the first days of December, we had our first dusting, followed in the night with enough snow to cover up the grass, to make it of a sudden winter, and the clouds have broken, let heat escape and it stay cold and frozen.

*The first dusting, last weekend in Dale where we get groceries.*

*Driving home from the grocery store. This was 2:51pm. The sun was mostly down.*

This year I must have missed the first big snowball fight. Many of our students have never seen snow, and the first snowfall of winter inevitably brings a giddy excitement. Moods lift. People wander out to the docks into the fjord and take photographs. Typically a melee of snowball hurling and dodging erupts just after classes. But perhaps because it came at night, perhaps the students celebrated winter in a different way this year.

A Sunday hike, a day or two before the big snow. The frost crystals had begun up on the mountain, a centimeter long and glistening. This is one of my favorite things of winter here. We never had frost like this back in Minnesota.

*At the end of the school day, walking home.*

After months of rain, the snow is so welcome. It is so beautiful. Feet don’t get wet. I love the cold air on my face and the things the light does to the ground and sky. When the clouds pull back, the sky is iridescent, pearl. It falls dark early, three thirty or so, and the sun is behind the mountains by two. I sneak a walk in during lunch break and tramp across the footbridge to the islands.

We’ve had a wave of sickness running through the campus. Finally I caught a cold, the first I think I’ve had since Covid began. I feel grumpy. I feel like I’ll never be well again. This is how it always is. A week from now, term will be over. We’re traveling, first to Madrid to visit friends, then we’re heading to La Gomera in the Canary Islands. I suppose I’ll next be writing to you from there. The new Omicron variant is worrying us, as it is everyone. We’ll keep our masks on. We’ll do what we can do to all keep safe and to keep those around us safe.

*The sun reemerges at surprising moments.*

*A good time for bringing cups of tea to class.*

But for the next few days, we’ll be in winter. The fjord’s begun to freeze, which doesn’t happen often with its half-salt water and the bouncing temperatures. I’ll rest, recuperate this weekend, finish end-of-the-term grades and reports. Next week we’ll do some Christmas songs in class, and then everyone will go.

Best wishes for the December season,
Jimmy