I’m no great fan of snow, I admit. It’s one of the things to celebrate where my first port of call is to absolutely hold up your right not to celebrate. For many of us, snow is hard work. Snow days can make getting to work a nightmare, and missed work isn’t fun if you can’t afford it. Ice means isolation. Slippery surfaces mean real risk of injury. Cold weather kills people – usually the old and frail who cannot afford to heat their homes, and those who have no homes and are rough sleeping. Being able to enjoy the snow is a sign of privilege, and any celebration of it has to include recognition of that. It is not ok to shame or harass anyone who doesn’t enjoy it.
There is one particularly magical aspect of snow that is often overlooked by people who go out to play in it – and that’s footprints. Snow reveals who else has passed through, and if you can be out before human feet have obliterated all signs, snow can tell you stories about who was there and what they did.
Wild mammals are often shy of humans, and you won’t see them around so much even if they share your neighbourhood. Sometimes footprints are the only clue you get as to who is around. Footprints in snow are a lot easier to read than ones made in mud, I find. Not least because there’s the chance of getting pristine snow and just a few tracks through it, rather than the confusion of many passings that mud tends to hold.
It snowed where I live last week. I did venture out, and on one of those journeys, I found the prints of two foxes who had gone under a fence and into an industrial estate and wandered around a bit.