ONE PART NOVELTY

Second snow day in a row.

One of the things I like about this country is our cyclical relationship with snow: one part novelty, two parts fascination, three parts frustration. Then we go months and years without thinking about it at all, never buying snow-tyres and shovels, or toboggans and sledges. Until one day, down it comes again and the curious national obsession returns.

The park was full of people this afternoon. I saw them from the window - crowding around the bench at the top of the hill, the same bench I sit on on starlit summer nights when there's nobody there at all.

They were sledging today - hundreds of kids flinging themselves down the hill on plastic trays for fun. Then the snow started blizzarding again, and the crowd slowly dwindled until twilight flung its weird arms around the day.

Meanwhile of course, the Intrepids are exploring the luxuriant East Coast of Australia. I opened my inbox to pictures of palm trees and sandy beaches. They said they'd been to a botanical garden where all the plants were so unreal and vibrant that they looked like cardboard cutouts. They do love a botanical garden.

Hot and humid too, they said. No swimming at palm cove because of the deadly Box Jellyfish, but still, sweltering and sunny.

I looked out of the window at the frozen wasteland, the snow sputtering out of the sky and swirling in the icy wind. It's a wonder we're on the same planet.

Other countries have a more normal relationship with snow, I presume. I guess in Finland they just get on with it. In Sweden they pull on thick coats and climb into big vehicles. In Canada, they cheerily wrap themselves up and plough on through as though it were any other day and they're as cool as ever... I imagine.

Here, a blizzaard is on the national news and the BBC run stories about people stuck in their cars on the M62, and how local kind people brought them food and blankets.

What were they doing on the M62 in the first place?

As for me, I stayed in and worked from my laptop. I dialled in to a Skype meeting in my pyjamas and sipped a bottle of ginger beer while fixing defects. I hiked up the hill to Martin and Sarah's for lunch, then forgot to go to the Co-Op on the way back. I was too busy thinking about how many different types of snow there are, and how, unlike the Inuits, we only really have one word for all of them. I got to the end of the allotments and realised it was much closer just to go home.

One part novelty, two parts fascination eh? Thankfully, for me, I haven't felt the three parts frustration of it this time - there's been no sliding around nor that pesky inability to get to places. I've been alright, working from home, and since Wednesday night my car has been happily sitting out there, parked up on the roundabout at the end of the cul-de-sac, amassing snow like a Christmas pudding.

I could just eat a bit of Christmas pudding...

Funny how you can't get that all year round. Maybe I'll trudge up to the Co-Op and see if they have anything brandyish. Or at least anything at all that's more than one part novelty, two parts fascination.