A Non-Seasonal Non-Sequitur

Edinburgh's winter-stung youngsters recently begun to brave the elements for another season of working and feasting on the Meadows. Not all that long ago, the air temperature was so inclement that numerous gigantic snowboulders, created in the first flurries of snow-enthusiasm, were able to survive for weeks on end even as the grass around them grew greener. I can't help seeing these creations as Winter Proxies, versions of ourselves that are physically capable of - even physically dependent on - being outdoors in the extremes of the Midlothian winter. Especially so in the case of the host of snowmen, who peopled and stood watch (as do, we may imagine, the Inukshuk of the Arctic or the Moai of Easter Island) over a landscape that many of us were pushed to forswear for weeks (except, of course, for the time it took to build the snowmen). Here, then, is a catalogue of some of the characters that served us well as Winter Proxies, lest we forget.