13/01/2010
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Making tracks
We are immured in snow and Cucklington has been transformed into Verbier - minus the lifts. The children sit, like two pashas aboard the sledge issuing instructions to "run faster," as I slog up and down the hill, and they do no exercise at all. Two observations about snow; smell can pass through it (this week Brenda found four truffles through thick snow), and secondly, it makes you realise how many people are out and about. One of the walks I normally go on, was, I had assumed, a rare one, frequented only by badgers, rabbits and the odd mole. But no. Footprints revealed that it is as popular as the track round Central Park. Dozens of imprints ranging from size 13 to 3 dotted what I thought was a path known only unto God and me. Who are these mystery walkers, I wondered? I certainly never see them in person. Perhaps they are ghosts? Or poachers out after dark? Or perhaps they are following my tracks, and I have inadvertently advertised my most private
haunts? I did meet one of the walkers; a striking blonde who I don't know but had last seen at the helm of a new Jaguar in the car park of the local supermarket. But perhaps even a Jag doesn't work in the snow and walking to the shops explains the frenzy of footfall.
