Even at 35 you still get that same sense of childish excitement when you notice that it has been snowing overnight. ItÂ’s especially great if it wasnÂ’t snowing when you went to bed and so itÂ’s all the more unexpected. It seems to me that it snows much less than it used to. Kids these days are missing out.
I went for my run this morning and enjoyed the sound of my trainers scrunching on the undisturbed snow. It brought back loads of happy memories of childhood and snow. I remembered having a massive snow-ball war in my back garden with all the kids in my street. At one point I fell over on open ground and all the other youngsters descended on me and threw snowballs into my face very hard from close range. It made me cry, though it was hard to distinguish my tears from the streams of slush that were also pouring down my face. My mum told the others they all had to go home now.
I remembered going for a walk on the Mendips on New YearÂ’s Day when the snow drifts were about six feet deep and we got lost and eventually made our way home through the quarry. I was so cold by the time I got back that I had to be put into a hot bath, crying.
Yes, happy memories. Hold on. There must be some good ones. I went tobogganing with my sister and her friend, using those big industrial plastic sacks as sledges. That was great. Oh no, on the last go I followed her down too closely, spun round and collided with her and we had to go home cos she was hurt (at least in that one itÂ’s not me crying, though I probably did cry. I was that kind of child).
So snow is great in theory, but someone usually ends up getting hurt or cold or unhappy.
This theory is borne out by something I witnessed on Tooting Common. I saw a mother and father with their child of about seven or eight years of age (the child was wrapped in layer upon layer of winter clothing, so IÂ’m not sure, but I think it was a girl). The father had fashioned a snowball and was playfully chasing his child through the trees. The probable girl was squealing gleefully, really enjoying what was almost certainly her first conscious experience of the joys of snow. The father threw the snowball which found its target and the child immediately began screaming and sobbing (the wimp. At least I didnÂ’t cry until I had had the snowballs pounded over and over again into my face. This is why I have charitably determined the sex of the said child as female, in order to give it at least some excuse).
It was actually a beautifully comic scene, as the child had been enjoying the chase so much, but then the reality of being hit by a lump of frozen water shocked her enough to bring the fun to an abrupt end. The father pulled one of those faces you make when you have, through no real fault of your own, made a child cry. “That’s right,” he seemed to be thinking, “I have thrown something at my own child and made it cry. What a great father I am.” I ran past and couldn’t really contain my laughter. He smiled back, appreciating the universal comedy of the situation, whilst the mother (who had had nothing to do with the incident) comforted the surprised child. “It’s just the shock,” she said.
The snow teaches us all a lesson that we never seem to learn. Just because something looks fluffy and white and makes an endearing crunch when you step on it, it doesnÂ’t mean it isnÂ’t going to hurt you.
