A Hazy Shade of Winter

I wouldn’t be British if I didn’t take a moment to record the fact that we’ve had a bit of snow here this week, so here you go: please accept these photos of our walk home from school a few days ago…

It was less idyllic than it looks, to be honest – mostly because my fingers were so cold, even in my gloves, that I was worried they were going to come off with the gloves themselves, but also because, in my experience, snow is always better in theory than it is in practice: even small amounts of it, like this.

(And also because Max likes to take the school run as an opportunity to have some of his more awkward conversations: like when he asked me who the “Grand old chooking York” was, say. Or this morning, when he regaled Terry with the news that someone has been pooping in the “cubicles” at school. We are led to believe that the “cubicles” in question are NOT toilet cubicles, so this is obviously most unfortunate /fascinating news, depending on who you’re speaking to.)

(Update: it seems a suspect has now been identified, but Max won’t tell us who it is, as it’s a secret. It’s the biggest scandal to hit the village since that one time someone was offered salad cream in the corner shop, let me tell you.)

Anyway, I was talking about the snow, and how underwhelming it is to me as an adult: a bit like meeting someone beautiful then finding out that’s literally all they have to offer.

Beauty is literally all that snow has to offer. Beauty and… well, inconvenience, really. The hats and gloves huddled on the radiator. The mountain of wet coats and boots in the hall. The blanket of snow on the velux windows that makes it feel like nighttime even in the middle of the day. The feeling that normal service is suspended, whether you want it to be or not. Honestly, I’m not a fan.

But this boy is, though:

For him, the snow is still every bit as magical as it looks in these photos. He won’t always feel like that, of course (Especially not if he takes after me in this respect), but for now I’m leaving these photos here so he can one day look back and remember a random December afternoon when we walked home from school in the first snowfall of the year. Sometimes I think these are the things that make the most important memories…