More snow please, we’re British

February 4th, 2009 by Graham

More snow please, were British
What a difference a day makes…

Looking out the window this morning, to find out that someone has stolen all the snow overnight, makes me think at first that maybe Caroline turned up the heat a little too far. :-)

We have this regular see-saw situation at Fabiola & Sing Sing where we disagree about how hot the heating should be. I guess I’ve become acclimatised to cooler conditions through decades of working around air-conditioned computers and years of having most of the duvet pulled off my sleeping body (Hey! Watch it! – Ed)

So I’ll turn the temperature down a little and – when I’m not looking (or rather more accurately, she doesn’t care if I’m looking or not) – Caroline will turn it back up a degree or two.

We don’t go crazy in either direction – after all, it would be daft to be shivering in the house under three puffa jackets, and similarly Caroline is the more environmentally-friendly one of the two of us, always reminding me to recycle tin cans, cardboard and glass bottles.

And maybe she’s onto something. Maybe there’s something especially magical about snow and the winter, specifically because we’re indoors in the warm looking out to the cold vista. The snow seems to fall so much less than it used to these days (according to the media, Britain was hit by its biggest snowfall since 1991), making it more unusual, making it more of an event. And it reignites the child inside all of us to go and have fun.

Fun isn’t about being cold or wet or miserable, but about adventure and doing something different, with the comfort of knowing a warm duvet and a hot cup of chocolate isn’t too far away.

So there were reports of policemen throwing snowballs at each other, and scores of adults pulling kids on makeshift sledges (I heard of one man using an old suitcase!) up wintry slopes, and even skiing on Parliament Hill.

Life is short, and we should all do everything we can to make it fantastic. A flurry of snow should remind all of us that it’s not about the 9-5 grind and keeping up with mortgage payments, but about enjoying life to the full.

Lets hope those feelings remain long after the snow has disappeared from everyone’s front garden…