‘s’no weather like snow weather

At the start of last week, the first tranche of snow maps were released. Snow throughout the tablelands, and up into Queensland, they suggested, and as low as 700m. My house? 720m. There could be snow! At our house!

As the week progressed, the snow line shifted higher and higher, but the rain predictions stuck around. By Thursday it looked like snow would be a bit of a fizzer, and not really enough at the top of the range even to bother going for a drive. A cold front moved in Friday, along with drizzly rain on and off all day. We powered through the housework and our town chores, ready to snuggle down at home by the fire for a miserable, cold, rainy weekend. No snow.

Saturday morning, we enjoyed a wee sleep in, and as the coffee was brewing and I awaited its delivery to my spot by the fire, I mindlessly opened Facebook and started scrolling. My feed immediately lit up with the weather pages having run the models overnight and suddenly, snow was back on the agenda. It won’t settle, I said, but it looks like we might get some flurries. Butterfly woke up, cuddled for a bit, hit the kitchen. She’d had a plan to cook breakfast, and got to work on some delicious berry pancakes for us.

The rain was settled in, and I had no intentions of leaving the fireside any more than I had to. The mister decided since nothing was doing, he and the kids might visit his mum (I had a few things that had to done at home which meant I was staying behind). From the next town over, they called. “We’re not going,” he said, “there’s snow falling here and I’m worried about black ice on the way home. We’ll go have a look at the snow and be back in a bit.”

“In a bit” ended up being much later in evening. While I waited, I knitted, I read, I did a Skillshare class, I did those jobs that needed doing. I rugged up and fed the animals and got the generator going and did some chores. I read and knitted and watched the last of Nobody Wants This and started season two of The Mentalist. I chatted snow and rain with my besties and with my school friends. I hearted a million posts on Facebook as half the region went up the range to play in the best snowfall in forty years. I watched the rain, and mid afternoon, something caught my eye.

“Is that…” I wandered to the back door. Another white something, then another.

“IT’S SNOWING!!” I texted my besties chat and my school chat and my family. “IT’S SNOWING IN OUR YARD”

Productivity was off the agenda for the rest of the afternoon, in favour of staring out the windows and watched as the small flurries amongst the rain gave way to an undeniable snow fall. It’s very uncommon here, and I remember as a tiny wee toddler, being told it would snow while I slept, and just like magic, I woke to a world blanketed in white. It’s one of my earliest memories, likely cemented thanks to the retelling because it’s just so uncommon. In the forty years since, there’s been sleet, there’s been sago snow, there’s been a flake or two amongst the drizzle, but this? An actual snow fall?

I enjoyed the watching and the filming and the sharing. I welcomed the family home. I lamented the earlier rain that made the ground too wet to allow it settle. Then, right on dark, the magical, unexpected afternoon turned the dial up, and the snow actually settled. For the first time since 1984, there was snow collecting on the ground. I couldn’t stop racing to the back door to watch it. We stoked the fire, we shared our photos from adventures (theirs) and home (mine). We tucked ourselves into bed early; not even our large fireplace, over insulated house, and double glazed windows could protect us entirely, and it was cooler than was comfortable. Beds were layered with mama-made quilts, audiobooks queued up and new novels pulled from shelves and off we went, satisfied with a day well spent.

The bigger surprise was to wake Sunday, to find snow still clinging to the last of the shadows in the garden. As the sun rose, and the clouds cleared, the day turned into one of the stunners our district is known for – cool nights, mild days. Beetle headed off to a scouts event. Butterfly went exploring & starting a fairy garden. Boy2 worked on an upgrade to his (blunt and decorative only!) katana. Mr Barefoot and I went for a walk through the forest to check the waterfalls roaring through the granite country after two inches of rain (and SNOW), and the sun was so warm we had to take our jumpers off. Unbelievable when only twelve hours previously, it had been snowing.

This is crazy, I kept saying, it’s completely magical and it’s crazy. It came out of nowhere and turned any ordinary weekend into one of the highlights of the decade. Definitely one we’ll talk about for a long time to come.