“Une bonne vieille tempête”
Until the rain washed much of it away today, it seemed like the snow wouldn’t stop accumulating in the streets of Montreal. A big storm in early December left more than 30 centimetres of the stuff on the ground; no sooner had that been cleared away did another 40 or 50 centimetres fall over the course of a few days last week. The city’s blue collar workers couldn’t keep up and streets were gridlocked for a good three or four days.
One random guy on the news (I think he was on the Magdalen Islands) described the storm as “une bonne vieille tempête.” I like that expression. It reminds me of fourteenth-century French poet François Villon‘s famous line, “Mais où sont les neiges d’antan?” It gives the impression that, even as we run towards something new and unknown, the icy hands of the past continue to grasp at our ankles.
Tags: Montreal, Snow, Weather, Winter
Kate McDonnell says:
I like how that traffic sign reassuringly suggests that any danger of colliding with other cars ends here.
December 24th, 2007 at 3:03 am