Hot Spring

I've been away for a couple of nights and i followed this path up into the mountains to a hot spring.

The snow fell as we slept in a friend's camping car, so we woke to an unexpected whiteness, dazzling in the sunshine.

I think snow should always come like that, a surprise when you wake.

One Christmas, i was a teenager, i went to the local church for midnight mass and came out to untrampled virgin snow that had fallen as we sang carols. Its coming had been unheraled, no sound had given it away.

The hot spring was perfect, air temerature close to zero, water around 40c. Steam rose into the evening light, the coming night and mingled with a thousand stars.