Blankets

The softening effect of the snow is particularly welcome in the city. The traffic slows to walking pace, the streets get quieter, everything returns to a more human scale.

At London Bridge station, there was a column of drifting snow suspended under every missing section of the roof. Even better, people seem to look up from their shoes and communicate. At the station, a man shaking the snow from his shoulders caught the eye of the woman selling the Evening Standard, and they both grinned.

Right now, having just picked my way home, I can hear laughter on the street outside as the snowballs start to fly.

* * *

I was interrupted then by a neighbour bringing round a delivery she’d taken off the doorstep for us. We spent five cheerful minutes talking about how cheerful everybody is. Her husband was on the street taking a photograph, as he does every year when it snows.

I know it will have melted away by tomorrow, but tonight there’s a thin covering of humanity on the streets of London.