mystery who? salt

In the peeling paint of an old lamp post mystery resides.

A face I haven't seen for some times belongs to an elderly man who used to help out at Hall's bookshop. Before that he ran a bookshop for new books almost next door.  He disappears into Chapel Place. As I look after him I meet a neighbour who works at Hall's from time to time. ""That wasn't Paddy was it?" she says. I assume  that we are talking about the same person.  I didn't know his name, but now I guess I do. "I think so," I say. "I must talk to him," she says and hurries on.

Last year when it snowed the trains seized up, the trains didn't work and the roads became skating rinks. This year for the first time there is talk of snow and in the morning there is a thin white covering on the tarmac. Snow? No. It's salt. Precautionary salt. We're still waiting for the snow. Our new snow shovel  meanwhile awaits initiation. Or will it remain, for this year at least, the charm against snow, which I have come to believe it is.