My Auntie Gertie comes to mind whenever snow falls. She was childless. She was my dad’s older sister, one of several, and maybe 15 years older. Dad is the youngest of 9 survivors. Two now survive, Uncle Cyril and dad. Auntie Gertie was a favourite. Childless, she was, but a kind nanny to me and a sibling or so of my own.

She brought sweets every Friday evening, walking along Musgrove Road, down Troutbeck and 100 yards along New Cross Road to Fairlawn Mansions, to our door. Auntie Gertie and Uncle Vic brought Mars bars or Kit-Kats. They sat with my mum and dad in the back living room of number 37 and watched television. And chatted. I sat and listened, until bedtime. And as I grew, Gertie would always think of me, she said, when the snow fell. She knew it meant house-arrest. She understood that my natural leaning toward football in the back yard or in Telegraph Hill Park, top of Pepys Road, would be curtailed indeterminately. My mates would not be calling for me. They knew, too, that the first, and any, snowfall would mean I couldn’t dare leave the flat, at least not without an arm, a human crutch to grasp for safety.  Couple that with the real crutches, and you get the picture of an awkward situation here, one beyond solution. And, anyway, you can’t play football attached to another. Late 50s, and far into the 60s, we’re talking here.

And snow falls here, now, here in south Suffolk. Cars, even occasionally 4 x 4s, are in ditches here and there, so what chance the country stroll? But while the roads (there are no pavements here among the cornfields, and that’s fine) are glass, the woodland stays navigable, so we can plod, diligently of course, and poke with heavy cherry sticks, to breathe the cold air and check on the damage done overnight by the voracious muntjac to the newly planted hedge (none discernable, as it happens). I look at my itinerary, and Inverness appears. May 1st. Yes, it’s a way off, but with the airport there closed a few days ago, the imagination drifts. May 1st. Outdoors. Could be a case of mittens on, guitar fingering awkward. But then if the “gonged up” Francis and Rick can do it, well.......for now the snow keeps falling. Here, there and everywhere. It’s January. It’s cold. The snow falls. Tell me what’s new? Severe and serious this cold spell may be, but it is winter. And I have a ticket to Rome in 10 days time. Have to catch the Caravaggio/Bacon exhibition at the gorgeous Villa Borghese before it closes on the 24th. Air flight. January. Snow maybe. I’ll be safe, because at any sign of serious delays, I’ll turn and head home. Caravaggio and Bacon could well improve my life considerably, and I believe they will, together and contrasting in the most wonderful gallery on earth, but I don’t want to slip and fall and I won’t hang about at airports for needless hours. Like football when I was a kid, art is important, but not life itself.

My Auntie Gertie comes to mind whenever snow falls.