Some snow for the Sneeuberg mountains

NIEU-BETHESDA NEWS — High in the Sneeuberg mountains, Nieu-Bethesda hunkers down in a comforting valley that is treated to a snowfall or two most winters.

Sadly, with the perfunctory predictability of weather apps, Facebook and snow predictors, one is seldom surprised by the weather any more, and precipitation is measured and expected long before it arrives.

We are warned way ahead of time of cold fronts and rainfalls and heatwaves and snowfalls. Yet somehow, the weather seems to delight in proving that it still has the upper hand, and sometimes refuses to perform, leaving some who have driven for hours to see the snow, a little disappointed!

Gone is the magic of waking up to a surprise blanket of quiet whiteness that snowfalls used to gift us with in the days before wi-fi and connectivity infiltrated these isolated places. In today's world, we mostly know what is coming.

On Monday morning, Nieu-Bethesdans were not surprised to wake to a light flurry of snow that had blanketed the village in transient whiteness.

Yet, even though everyone knew that it was coming, it did not fail to elicit a feeling of magic to all that witnessed it. The village was transformed from the dusty sepias of the Karoo to a glittering pure canvas of crystalline whiteness.

Francette le Roux was visiting Bethesda at the time and managed to capture perfectly the beautiful effects of the snow on the village as it changed the familiar to a canvas of powdery purity.

When it snows, the creative juices are brought to the fore, as is evident in this poem by RW Cotton:

'A stranger came here late last night

Silent puffs of falling white

Frigid, falling, drifting down

Unusual this far down in a southern town.

Blanket soft and purest clean

Rarely do we have this scene

Every roof and every tree

Covered in such purity.'

(Extract from a poem by RW Cotton)

But unfortunately, for those who saw the posts on Facebook and Instagram and heard it on the news and Snow Report SA, by the time the eager snow spotters had arrived from the coast, Nieu-Bethesda's snow was nothing but a pipe-dream, leaving nothing but sposh and freeze in its wake.

On Monday morning, Nieu-Bethesdans were not surprised to wake to a light flurry of snow that had blanketed the village in transient whiteness.