Since the rather wonderfully named Waterlooville, here in South England is currently under inches of snow, I thought I would write a blog about it!

A snowflake can be either a single ice crystal, two of them fused together, or a whole mass of them getting together to have a party, to make a kind of snowflake puff ball. Snowflakes are not frozen raindrops, that would be sleet. Instead they are crystals which form when water vapour condenses straight into ice in the clouds. The unique shape and pattern of each snow flake gradually emerges as the crystals grow.

A snow crystal, that may be round, will attract material to it, because it is rough, but then there may also be a number of facets that are smoother and so accumulate material much more slowly. After all the rough surfaces have grown out, only the slower-growing facet surfaces remain, to create the snowflake. A snowflake is, most commonly, a hexagonal prism in shape. This, in turn can either be plate-like (or flat), or columnar, depending on which facet surfaces grow the quickest.

When snow flakes are just baby flakes, they tend to just be these hexagonal prisms, but as they mature and grow, branches grow out from the corners to create more intricate and complex shapes. This perfection, is, like so many things in this world, created from imperfection. Snowflake branching occurs because in order for water vapour to attach to the ice crystal, it has to diffuse through the air. If it finds a spot on the crystal with a tiny protuberance, it does not have to travel so far through the air to condense, so it tends to concentrate itself around and grow quicker at that particular spot…creating a branch. Then that branch in turn may have minor imperfections, so the process repeats itself. The result is an exquisite structure…unique to itself, because no two ice crystals will have lumps and bumps in the same spot. Cool physics, huh?

Now for more interesting science! Thin plates and starlike flakes tend to develop at temperatures of -2º C (28 F) and -15º C (5º F),columns and needles at around -5º C (23º F) and a combination of plates and columns at about -30º C (22º F). Also snow crystals tend to form simpler shapes when the humidity is low, and more elaborate ones as the humidity rises.

So the life of a snowflake entails evaporation of the water vapour from seas, lakes, rivers, plants, even you, when you exhale! If you take that air and cool it down, it will eventually condense, as dew if it is near the ground, as snow, if it is way up high.Snow-forming clouds are just conglomerations of liquid water droplets, until the temperature drops to about -10º C (14º F) and then the droplets gradually start to freeze, as described above.

So the next time it snows, consider the complicated evolution of that single snowflake that lands on your hand!

Recently someone I love saw 2 people that they cared about die, an uncle and a very best friend. I wrote a piece about it at that time to try to help bring consolation. I have revisited the subject, because we were discussing it again the other day and I felt there was more to be said.

Why is it that in the West we seem to be so bad at dealing with death when it comes to our friends, and coping with it when it visits one of our own? Why does it defeat us so completely? Sometimes it comes with foreknowledge, and we attempt to prepare for it but we invariably fall short. We do not want our loved one to suffer but to contemplate a world without them is impossible. And then we are left feeling guilty because our need for them may be causing them further distress, so our despair becomes magnified.

On other occasions, death bludgeons its way into our world without warning and shatters our peace, suddenly, shockingly, and we are left feeling bewildered, angry, defenceless. Why? Why now? Why was there no opportunity to say goodbye? Why us? And we can be sure that our friends, seeing and feeling our pain will be thinking, “thank heavens it’s not someone I love”. This isn’t an unkind or unfeeling response, it is really only natural. But sadly, it makes us feel worse and simultaneously makes our friends feel worse too for thinking it and there’s the uncomfortable stand-off.

Why too, do we find it so hard to name death? Why do people talk about ‘losing’ someone? They’re not mislaid! They’re are never coming back. They are dead. Nor have they ‘passed over’. They have not just suddenly become Jewish overnight, nor have they taken to flight. What’s with the euphemisms? As Monty Python would say, they are dead, defunct, they are no more. They have shuffled off this mortal coil. They are pushing up the daisies.

Death is always unwelcome. Yet it comes to every one of us. So why are we not prepared for its ravages? We know it is there, lurking, waiting, for each of us, so why are we not better equipped to deal with its consequences? If our loved one has an illness that we know will eventually prove fatal, why does the knowledge that they are no longer in pain not bring us more solace? It helps for sure, as does the knowledge that someone who died suddenly, did so almost certainly without any presentiment of mortality, yet we still struggle with facing life without their physical presence.

Grief is a strange bedfellow. It takes us all in different ways. I know I struggled for years to come to terms with the death of my mother, my friend with a father’s death. I simply couldn’t speak of my mother without choking up. Common to all of us, I believe, is that need to see ourselves as immortal, including those we love. When we are not, it is a devastating blow. One that every one of us struggles to come to terms with.

There are those of us, like myself, who have an illness that may well kill us, sooner or later, so we have tried to prepare ourselves to some degree. The notion of doing so is, of course, ridiculous. Although we may claim that death isn’t fearful, it simply isn’t true. We have not yet had to confront it. We have not yet looked it firmly in the eye and decided how we intend to greet its entrance. If death is imminent the struggle to deal with it is harder still. Many of my friends who have died have chosen to lock themselves away until they are able to mourn for themselves before they can allow those they love in, because they are painfully aware that those people they love are already struggling to prepare for their loss.

One of my friends, Mark, knew he was dying, but he had already made peace with himself. He then lived more fully in the moment than anyone else I have ever known. He knew he was going to die so he did not want to waste a single minute. And he didn’t. He lived, joyfully, until the day he died. My own mother, with characteristic bravery, chose to die. She was very single-minded so if she decided to do something, it always got done. Her illness, a very rare form of leukaemia, had left her very dependant on others, which, for a fiercely independent woman, was simply intolerable. So she sat down with our father, and wrote a letter to each of their friends. She told them she was dying. She told them she did not want them to read about her death in a newspaper. She told them that she loved them.

She made it very clear that she did not want to see any of her grandchildren, whom she adored, because she wanted them to remember her as she had always been to them. However, she wanted to say goodbye to each of her children so we all descended on her home to spend time with her. To laugh with her. To reminisce. To love her as she did us. Our brother was the last to say farewell and she died on the night he’d visited her earlier in the day. She died where she wanted to, in her own bed, surrounded by those she loved.

I have learned from my own loss that for some people, they may at first need to be quiet with their grief. Nevertheless, there will come a time when it is important to talk about the person who has died. Talking about the deceased does not diminish their loss but for those mourning it reminds them of all that made them fully them. What we need to do to support them in their grief is to ask them to tell us about the deceased and then be fully prepared to invest the time (no matter how long) to laugh and to cry as we hear them bear witness. In doing so we honour both the dead and the people they have left behind.

When I die I hope I have the courage to do what my mother and Mark did. I intend to live life to the full, then to make peace with myself, my world and my place in it, until the last breath leaves my body. And I also hope that by doing that, I will prepare those I love and who I know love me just a little for my loss. That if they close their eyes and ask me a question, if they ask me about something that is bothering them, they will instantly know what my answer would be. That I may not be by their side physically, or in their arms, but I will always be with them in spirit.

Our skies have recently become somewhat sexier with the arrival of Brian Cox on our TV screens in the UK. Formerly the keyboard player in a rock band, he is now a particle physicist and Royal Society University Research Fellow and Professor at the University of Manchester.

Jupiter. The largest planet in our solar system and named after the Roman king of the Gods by ancient astronomers. It is the fifth closest planet to the sun and is made up of 84% hydrogen, 15% helium and small amounts of ammonia, acetylene, ethane, methane, phosphine and water vapour.

A few facts about Jupiter. It is such a giant of a planet, that 1,300 Earths could exist within its volume. It rotates so incredibly quickly that days only last 10 hours and yet it takes 12 of our Earth years to orbit the sun. The planet has the largest moon in the Solar system, bigger than Mercury. It has over 60 known satellites, or moons, and they have wonderful names: Gannymede, Europa, Callisto and Io are four of them. The four major moons were discovered by Galileo Galilei in 1610 and were named for the lovers of Zeus.

Jupiter has a red spot, which is essentially a persistent anti-cyclonic giant storm that has been raging possibly since 1665, certainly since it was first spotted via telescope about 300 years ago. This Great Red Spot has roughly the circumference of the earth, which gives a stark realisation of the sheer size of this planet. Even before Voyager proved it was a storm, it was known that it bore no relation to the mass below it because it rotated at a different speed to the mass beneath it, sometimes faster, sometimes slower. During its recorded history, relative to any fixed marker on the planet below, the red spot has travelled round Jupiter several times.

The orange brown colour of Jupiter is due to the upwelling of compounds that change colour when they come into contact with ultraviolet light. No one knows their exact composition, but they are believed to be sulphur, phosphorous and maybe hydrocarbons. Theory posits that if Jupiter’s mass increased considerably, then it would shrink in size because the interior would be so severely compressed by the increased gravitational force generated. Fascinating, huh?

My last interesting snippets of information are that the planet’s mass is 70% of the total mass of all the other planets in the solar system and that if you weigh 100 pounds on Earth, you will weigh 264 on Jupiter. Lucky we live on this planet, yes?!

2012 was The Chinese Year of the Dragon – so it got me thinking as to why it is a creature of great good fortune in Chinese culture yet a monster to be feared and vanquished in the West.

In Chinese culture, the dragon represents power, authority, and is a harbinger of good luck. It demands respect. In the west, it is usually thought of as malicious and monstrous and commands fear and loathing. I know which dragon I would rather pursue!

The western dragon of myth and legend overlaps in many different cultures/countries. It is usually depicted as scaly, with a tough, armoured hide. It often has wings, though it rarely flies, and lives in rivers, caves or an underground lair. The first mention of a dragon is in The Iliad but the Greek word used, drákōn, can also mean snake. Interestingly, the Slavic words for dragon, zmey, zmiy or zmaj, are all masculine words for a snake, which is normally feminine! These dragons, with the exception of the Red Dragon of Wales, are malevolent, and in need of slaying. Some of them are even depicted with 3 heads, and these heads grow back every time one is cut off!

In stark contrast, the Chinese dragon is a beast to be honoured and revered. People born in a Dragon year are, according to the Chinese, uninhibited, non-conformist, free spirits who don’t play by the rules. They are masters of the grand gesture. They like to do everything on an epic scale. Creative, flamboyant, confident, fearless, they invariably make it to the top. They are irrepressible, energetic and hugely gifted, and they simply do not know when to stop. Generous to a fault, they are popular, but their impulsive natures can sometimes get them into trouble!

What is interesting to me is that the Year of the Snake follows the Year of the Dragon…so it is interesting that in Western parlance, the word used for it was used for both. Interesting too, that the dragon is often depicted as being quite serpentine in appearance…The Snake’s characteristics could not be less like the dragon, however. It is private, introspective, and self-composed. Where the dragon is bling, the snake is refinement. They both share the same desire to succeed, they just go about it in different ways.

The year 2012 was something of an upheaval for me, I don’t know about you, but I am looking forward to 2013 mightily, as a year of new beginnings, of good fortune, of joy.