Life in the Snow Lane

Normally I hardly ever see the people who live in the same street as me. They get in their cars and drive off. But the past few days, I meet people out walking, or clearing snow from their driveways or digging out their cars.

This morning I shovelled snow from the path again, and also from the path going round the side of the house to the back, where the coal bunker is located – though I doubted that the coalman would make it. On the way down the hill to take some photos, I met a neighbour also equipped with camera. I'm taking photos to send to my friends in the south of England, they're complaining about an inch of snow and I want to show them what real snow looks like, he says.

I meet the postman, walking up the hill, laden with a heavy sack. I take my mail from him, commiserate, and thank him for making the effort. I meet a couple of other neighbours out for a walk, and later, the one who gave me a lift yesterday. As we speak, flocks of geese are sensibly flying in a southward direction, and he tells me how he likes to get up close to geese [he's a professional photographer] and so he lies down in the marshy places where they congregate, and he says he gets to within a couple of feet of them.

After I get back, a neighbour asks me if I need anything, as they're driving to the shops. Another phones to say the coal lorry has arrived. I hurriedly make a better job of clearing the path. But the truck has only made it half way up the hill and the young man has to carry the bags of coal the rest of the way. It's not so bad here he says, over in Duns there's about four feet of snow. He thanks me for clearing the path, I thank him profusely for bringing the coal.