Snow in Centreville

 I've been praying for snow for weeks and Wednesday night it finally came, preceded first by thunder, lightning and hailstones. Then the snow came down swiftly and silently in giant flakes. Emblemax emptied pretty fast as well as the rest of Northern Virginia and soon the roads became gridlocked with peoples' homeward bound journeys taking 10 times longer than usual. Some of my friends didn't make it home and one took 12 hours to get to his home.
I got home after nearly an hour so I was lucky and immediately walked up to the local store to get munchies and milk. These bicycles were parked outside the store and to my surprise  the place was virtually empty.

The parking lot usually full of cars was desolate. The wind was fierce and blew the snowflakes everywhere. They got into every crack and I was covered in just a couple of minutes.

The trees looked beautiful and our little part of the world was soon silent and looking like a wonderland.

The lights came on and added a magical glow everywhere.

Although the trees were enchanting it soon became apparent that they were in danger of breaking. This silver birch outside our building bowed so low to the ground that we had to duck underneath and I was worried about Stuart who was parked close by in case one of the boughs cracked and landed on him. We brushed off the snow from the branches we could reach including the hedge outside my back porch.

This holly tree outside my lounge window made me feel as though Christmas had returned.
Kota had to see for himself and yowled until he could go outside, so with harness and leash on, out we went. And 2 minutes later we were back indoors again with him leading the way.
So I finally had my snow and it was wonderful to cuddle up on the sofa with hot chocolate and Jamesons just listening to the silence and watching the world turn white. There's rumors there may be more next week...