Snow joke? Well, actually, “it’s no joke” that Daglan received its first snowfall of the winter last night, although it was nowhere near the depth of the snowfall that covered much of New York State (and notably, the city of Buffalo) recently. Still, our snow is noteworthy because we get so little of it each winter — and even then it’s usually flurries.
Jan and I noticed the large, fluffy flakes falling late yesterday afternoon, and figured that not much of it would remain. Any flakes falling on the road melted almost immediately.
But this morning, there was evidence that a decent amount had fallen, and remained. As is typical in this sort of climate, any snow that falls is liable to stick to surfaces that are colder than the streets, which typically absorb the sun’s heat and thus melt the flakes. So today you could find at least some snow on trees, roofs, plants, and some cars.
Here, as an example, is a view from our front door this morning, looking past our doorbell to a neighbour’s vine, with traces of snow on the leaves:
The thickest collections of snow were on cars — the roofs, and any slanted windows. For instance, here’s the windshield of my car (in the foreground) with Jan’s car just next to mine:
On the plus side, the snow — even though sparse — added to the attractiveness of the landscape around Daglan. Here’s a view from a large parking lot towards the Céou River:
The snow did bring a few problems. My aquagym class was cancelled, for instance, because the pool was just too cold. Friends of ours in Sarlat, whose house is down a slope at the end of a long driveway, couldn’t drive up to a main road, because their drive was so slippery. And the front page of Sud-Ouest featured a car in our area that had slid off the road into a ditch, because the road was covered in ice. Still, it was all pretty manageable — and I expect that by tomorrow, most of the snow will have melted.
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