Amid the winter snow, a foretaste of summer fun for Salisbury

DON’T you love that silence that descends along with snow?
I’m reluctant to step outside my front door right now, not just because it’s cold, but because it seems such a shame to sully that pristine whiteness with footprints.
It’s Tuesday morning, rush hour has come and gone, and cars remain parked in their driveways in our little suburban road. They look like someone has gently laid a blanket over them and tucked them up for the night.
If only someone had told the puppy to stay tucked up, too, I wouldn’t feel quite as dozy as I do.
But she poked me with her cold little nose at 4am to wake me up, wanting to pop outside, only to stand transfixed in the doorway at the transformed scene before her.
Although it was still dark, the cathedral and the fields seemed bathed in an uncanny, almost yellow reflected light.
Then she rushed into the garden to tear round madly in circles just for the joy of it, pushing her nose into the snow and tossing it up into the air.
I didn’t have the heart to be grumpy, standing there yawning in the freezing cold in my dressing gown and bare feet.
She was doing what we should all be doing if we weren’t too busy half the time - looking for the fun in life and making the most of it. Especially when it’s free!
Summer might seem a long way off right now, but there’ll be fun aplenty come the May Bank Holiday weekend, when Salisbury will be getting into the Notting Hill carnival spirit with the first Fisherton Festival.
Reggae and samba bands, street entertainers, stand-up comedy, a Chinese dragon, and stalls manned by traders in national dress celebrating all the cultures that make up city life – it should be a great addition to Salisbury’s social calendar and give all the independent shopkeepers in Fisherton Street a welcome boost.
I’m glad to see that even in these straitened times our councillors and the BID can see the sense in stumping up relatively modest sums to get the project off the ground, and I hope local businesses will follow their lead by offering sponsorship.


My suggestion last week that Salisbury might benefit from having a Sunday flea market seems to have hit the spot.
Several readers emailed me to say they love the idea, and one sent a link with information about a venture that is already proving a huge success not far away, in Frome.
For those of you who are interested, here it is: www.thefromeindependent.org.uk. Here’s hoping this is read by someone with the power to make it happen.