Expecto Columba

RICHARD NEGUS IS A PROFESSIONAL HEDGELAYER AND WRITER. HE IS A KEEN WILDFOWLER AND HAS A PASSION FOR GREY PARTRIDGES

Anthropologist Franz Boas claimed the native Canadian Inuit have 50 words for snow. I have seven, none of which are suitable for print. It is essentially filthy muck. Once you have taken a cutesy photograph or two and stamped up the garden to feed the birds, the realisation speedily dawns that snow is nothing but cold, floury rain with decent PR.

Snow is useless for hedgelaying; ditches become drift-filled mantraps. The pleachers we cut disappear beneath the flakes, soaked gauntlets turn into bars of slippery soap, transforming bill hooks and saws