Snow Arrives

The Fens Are White


   We woke to find the fens covered in that cold white winter coat that visits every year, conifer branches bend under the weight of snow and the ponds are quiet under ice. Fen tigers all over East Anglia pack up fires for the day and care for livestock, chimneys smoke away like village gents puffing on pipe and great coats are pulled from hooks of iron to keep backs warm, boy do I love this time of year.

   The hardened fen folk would laugh loud to hear me call this snow, to them it's more of a thick frost and as for the cold winds, well just an early spring breeze, their weathered faces tell stories of winters hard, winters of ice and freezing gales that freeze drain and dyke alike, winters when rivers are walked upon for week after week like frozen lanes that snake through the flat lands towards the wash, where clusters of ice covered reeds line each bank like miniature winter forests beneath which roach and rudd hide, oh no I've not seen a real fen winter yet !