Day 355 (only 10 more days to go!)

Whites.

The longest day of the year, the winter solstice, the beginning of the long cold, of which we had no experience whatsoever when we arrived here in this strange country.

No run today, as I sat in an office for hours with three men working and chatting intermittently, and five fir trees waving their woolly arms at me through the window.  I was trapped, waiting for my car to be serviced.

Eventually the car was ready and I drove home the Pretty Way, as opposed to the Quick Way, which takes you on the more ugly highway.  The Pretty Way runs through farmland, winding roads with bridges over little icy rivers, dark water lined with white ice and snow.

There were three fleecy sheep looking almost yellow against the snowy hill.

There were fifty cows huddled together near the fence, waiting to be led into the warm cowshed with its bountiful troughs.

There was a long line of geese, like a search party about to cover a large field.  When I got out of the car to take a photograph, one goose became a drill sergeant, marching up and down the line shouting at the troops, "Beware, a human approaches!". 

Beautiful awkward walkers on those enormous feet, like boys like Nick who grow too quickly, their feet becoming large clown-shoes at the ends of their legs. 

I must admit, guiltily, that I was no better than a thoughtless child, that I ran at them eventually, just for the thrill of watching those big birds take off, hearing the beat of those powerful wings, so many, their indignant voices pealing out, "She's chasing us away!  Where are we going?"

There was a beautiful silvery-white red-tailed hawk practicing aerobatics right above my head.

There were two horses, warm in their blankety coats, nuzzling one another, looking up briefly as I went by in my big friendly reliable old car, shiny green after its free carwash, having just received a clean bill of health, even though it is 11 years old!

The Christmas Tree.
When she finally gets all the bags, cardboard and plastic bins in a row to go out to the car, it has begun to snow.  As she opens the door, the phone rings and it is her dear friend, with whom she must speak and listen, and so she sits down in her coat, which she soon has to remove due to a hot flush creeping up from her uterus, it would seem, spreading in waves outwards, her personal heater without a reliable thermostat.

It is snowing harder when she eventually gets going again, hauling all the trashbags and recycling from the last four weeks to the dump, wishing once again that her town employed trash collectors.  Up the hill she drives, reverses into place with her view obstructed by huge crushed cardboard boxes, resorting to the rear-view mirrors, remembering her dad's lessons, how he congratulated her on her reversing skills, then said, "Ok, now do it with your tongue inside your mouth!" with that twinkle in his blue blue eyes.  Thinking how she and her sister both reverse exactly as he used to, flinging their non-steering arm across the back of the passenger seat, half-turning in the seat so that they have a clear view back in the direction they want to go, then effortlessly steering one-handedly into the parking space, or around the corner, or whichever is the desired destination of the reversing car. 

She greets the man with the withered arm, who runs the dump, and then heaves the huge outside trash-bins off the back of the van, and lugs them along the ground to the precipitous drop, over which one must empty the heavy bins.  The man with the withered arm turns on the noisy machine and with her next hoist she sees how everything is being crushed, and is glad that she hasn't fallen in with the force of her hefting of the heavy burden.

It is snowing hard now, and after she has gone up and down the steps to the dumpsters which fill up with plastics and glass, and the other with cardboard, she pours in the bags of clothing for the Salvation Army, and heads to the swap-shop, a wonderful place, (which wouldn't exist if there were trash-collectors), where she finds some pretty glasses and a game.

It is snowing heavily by now, as she makes her way to John's Farm stand, just down the road from her house, where John, the cheerful old Greek man, gives out hot cider to all his customers, and then invites them to sit next to his fire, where there is at least a half-hour "catching-up" to do with his "African friend" before she can buy what she has come for, in this case, a Christmas tree.    At long last he walks with her past all the trees, pointing out their beauties and their flaws, until she recognises one, a little short stocky one, like her. 

The snow-flakes hitting the windscreen from a horizontal angle in the already darkening sky, make it seem as though she were going into timewarp speed, and the little Balsam Fir kindly spreads its sweet scent throughout the car, making first her nose and then the rest of her very happy.  She has to turn the car around so as to come upon the treacherous driveway at a fair speed, because by now it is white and slick with snow. 

The car takes a flying leap up the first part, thunders around the corner, then slows, slides, edges up and Yay! she is over the steep hump and on the flat, she and the little tree have made it!  And it is not so hard to get inside, to set it upright in the big white bucket, using bricks to steady and support it.  The Christmas tree seems very helpful, knowing that she has no one to lend a hand, and she pours good clean life-giving water into the bucket, to give it some comfort.

The Tree waits a full day, standing in its greenery, and then tonight some boys and a man decorate it, rather haphazardly, in the manner of boys, and the tree can see that there are still decorations in the box, but everyone has gone to do their homework, or to potter around on the computer, or to sit by the fire and write their blog, and so it waits patiently, content in its festive finery, with little lights shining out, proud and tall, arms outstretched in the eternally generous manner of its kind.