Country diary: hammering hail and a rare sight of crystalline beauty
Dull, snow-stained cloud over the hills confirmed the winter storm approaching, quickly, from the east. When it hit the village, pushed by a gale that tore on the heavy boughs of the beech timber, the air temperature was hovering near zero. What fell wasn’t the mist of comfortable, sluggish flakes from remembered childhood, however a hammering array of dry, arduous fragments of ice that bit and stung earlier than the relentless wind.
Rattling on to the trail, it scrunched underfoot the place it settled, whereas the breeze swirled crisp dry leaves into tight vortices earlier than scattering them once more. With the arrival of the robust wind, the sense of chilly was intense, numbing my brow the place hair not protects it.
Thin bands of ice fragments began to build up throughout the meadow, marking the clumps of rush and the irregularities of the turf. The floor was strong and unyielding within the deeply crusted frost, but nonetheless bore not-quite-random marks of exploration the place the night flock of starlings had probed the soil for meals some days earlier than.
Only later, as I climbed in direction of the highest of the hill, did the hail slacken; the temperature appeared to rise very barely too. The remaining particles of ice had been smaller, lighter and drifted slightly than fell. A single speck, no bigger than an apple pip, settled on my sleeve – displaying towards the darkish cloth as a tiny, excellent hexagon. Archetypal, embedded in our winter tradition, but one thing I’ve not often seen.
I paused on the stile by the previous quarry, resting my hand very briefly on the strong, hammered lead cap that protects the highest of the gatepost. Beyond, a group of sheep clung near the hedgerow as they urgently grazed on the dry, yellowed grass of late winter.
As I climbed additional, the cloud thinned to the east, revealing the snowfields throughout the uplands. The snow past Pendam has been on the bottom for a strong month now and, as I headed again down the hill within the fading mild, the wind that had been at my again now met me head-on – with a thick sleet embedded in it. To describe the scene as bleak wouldn’t do it justice.
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