Calm in the Chaos

We all knew it was coming. The weather forecast said that we’d probably have a little  snow over the course of yesterday evening, yet I was still shocked to see a fair covering of the white stuff when I arose at 6:30am this morning. I drank my coffee and wondered just how long the school run would take in the present conditions – a journey which usually requires around 45 minutes, give or take. As I set off with the new My Bloody Valentine album enveloping me in it’s warm cocoon of reverb, my mood was distinctly upbeat.

All that all changed as soon as I arrived at Crookes however, the conditions rapidly deteriorated and the stiff wind drove huge flakes of snow into a blizzard. It was almost a whiteout. After successfully dropping Junior Unsubscriber at her school (which was thankfully open), I trudged back to the car in quiet contemplation and witnessed the first of several collisions as drivers attempted to negotiate the perilous hill which leads down to the main road.

After a brief moment of deliberation, I decided that the safest course of action would be to leave the car where I had parked it and walk back into Sheffield from where I could plan my journey home.

As I reached the bottom of Crookes Valley Road, the clouds began to break and I decided to take a shortcut through Weston Park. The bright light of a February morning leaked from the clear blue sky through heavy, snow-filled clouds making the deserted park look utterly beautiful. I stopped to take a few photographs before setting off, happy that I had taken this detour away from the seemingly endless procession of cars with their stressed occupants. Everyone was going somewhere important today, but no one was getting there on time.

On either side of this little oasis of calm, commuter chaos reigned and I was reminded once again how we tend to overlook these fleeting moments of pleasure as we go about the mundanities of adult life.