Member-only story

Oh, The Weather Outside Was Frightful

How I spent the first day of 2017 and other wintery scenes

Janice Macdonald
The Daily Cuppa Grande
3 min readJan 1, 2025

--

Port Angeles, WA (author’s pictures)

I was going to start this first day of 2025 by going for a walk — you know, New Year’s resolutions and all that. But the day is drawing to a close and I’m still in my fleecy winter nightclothes, telling myself that I deserve a day of sloth. I do. Really. Anyway, it’s cool and grey here in southern France, it gets that way sometimes. And there’s even a chance of rain. My hair might get wet.

So, in full slothful mode, I drifted over to Facebook, which informed me that eight years ago, on this very day, I was back in the States for a visit. Snow had fallen during the night, transforming the fields around my son’s house on Washington State’s Olympic Peninsula into a winter wonderland. Braving the cold, I trudged outside with my camera.

It was beautiful. Before moving to France, I’d lived in Washington for six years but never got over the magical transformation of a heavy snowfall. Even wire fences looked beautiful with a dusting of snow.

A table for two?

Living there, I even ventured into the local mountains for a bit of snowshoeing. Since my cabin was at the…

--

--

The Daily Cuppa Grande
The Daily Cuppa Grande

Published in The Daily Cuppa Grande

The Daily Cuppa Grande is an international writing community dedicated to sharing our culture, traditions, lifestyle, relationships, hopes, and humor to create a bridge connecting ordinary humans everywhere. It’s everything you love at The Daily Cuppa, in long form.

Janice Macdonald
Janice Macdonald

Written by Janice Macdonald

At 68, I started a new chapter in my life: I moved to France. Alone. It turned out to be quite the page-turner. Still is — even when age insists on a part.

Responses (15)