Snow day

We knew it was coming, the snow day, but it was still magical to wake up to about a foot of snow on Wednesday morning. School had been cancelled the day before, so there were no early morning frettings about what to do, and we even managed a bit of a lie-in.

The Littleboys were outside by 8.30am for their first session playing in the white stuff (despite my mutterings of "it's far too cold, and you've got ALL DAY to play in the snow"). Meanwhile The Doctor and I were shovelling the driveway and scraping off the cars. It seemed a shame to break up that perfect, icing-sugar sea of virgin snow, but we know from experience that if you don't get shovelling while it's soft and powdery, it turns into utterly impenetrable slabs of ice.

By about 10, the boys were tired, and came in for a breather while I treated myself to a bowl of steaming porridge with maple syrup - a suitable breakfast after an hour of shovelling, I decided.

But they were outside again by 11 when the kids next door came round to ask them to play, all of them sledging down the hill in next door's garden with whoops of joy. By lunchtime every item of their clothing was sopping - gloves smelling of wet dog lined the window sills drying off, dripping ski pants and coats were hanging from the overhead lights. The hallway was awash with melted snow, and abandoned ski socks were strewn around the room.

After lunch, with the driveway now clear, the Doctor went to work. But there was no rest for me; the boys demanded another sledging session, and with the neighbours not around, we had to do it in our front garden, which has a nice gradient - the only problem being that at the end you either shoot down a bank straight into the road, or crash into a tree. Therefore this required me standing there to 'catch' them as they hurtled down the hill. I tried several times to persuade at least Littleboy 2 to come in - he was getting whiny - but they insisted on staying outside, even after I retired to the house.

It wasn't until darkness was falling, casting a soft blue light onto the snowfall, that they stomped back in, exhausted, red-cheeked and dripping wet (again) and demanded pieces of toast. ("I need something to warm me up!" insisted Littleboy 1, who refuses to try any kind of hot drink). They then wanted to 'do crafts'. At this point, surrounded by wet ski gear and laundry, I resorted to making a plea that would no doubt appall any child rearing expert:

"Can't you just sit down for 5 minutes and watch TV?"

Before the storm, a fellow mother had said to me: "Don't you just love snow days? Nothing to do but stay in your pajamas all day....".

If anyone knows how this is achieved, could they please tell me?