It has snowed for the last three days at my client's offices. 

What appeared to be snowflakes drifted and danced past the windows.  On closer inspection they are revealed to be seeds on fragile white parachutes.  Their fairy storm has been relentless.

No one knows from whence they came.  Some believe it is from the willow trees that weep along by the canal.  Others are convinced they are blown across, like airborne refugees, from the nearby common.  They are a mystery.

The soft black roof of my car was covered by them when I left this afternoon.  I was certain that my one-hundred-mile-an-hour roar along a couple of stretches of motorway, or my twisting and turning in swirling wind currents of rapidly-travelled-A-roads would have lifted them en masse into my slipstream.

But when I parked outside the house they were still there in their thousands. 

They are far stronger and much more resilient than their fragility would suggest.