Winter Wonderland
It had been forecast for days. Levels of excitement around the younger members of the household had been escalating dangerously all afternoon. Our promises of “it's going to snow tonight” were starting to sound doubtful – until the moment I looked from the patio doors with Little Miss Eight late in the afternoon, and saw the first flakes.
“Look at the tree in the garden – look at the darkest part of the tree – what can you see inbetween us and the tree”
Several moments passed while she frowned, and stared out into the garden.
“SNOW! IT'S SNOWING!”
In reality, the lightest, smallest of flakes were drifting from the air, just visible against the trees. This made no difference to our eight year old, who sprinted through the house with her volume turned up to eleven.
“IT'S SNOWING GUYS! IT'S SNOWING”
And so it was we ended the evening with little hand and nose prints across every window and door within reach throughout the house. Rather surprisingly, they slept.
Morning brought excitement, hilarity, and fury. A fully dressed contingent of little girls arrived in the bedroom doorway at 7am, ready to play in the snow. They were dressed in a mixture of tracksuits, summer dresses, and pyjamas. Apparently this was totally suitable attire for an attempt on the north face of Annapurna. I've never seen W so furious.
Instructions were barked, accusations were hurled, and I thought I had better get up. Better to be downstairs making a cup of tea than upstairs amid a pretty realistic recreation of Gettysburg.
It's now 9am and it feels like we've been up for hours (perhaps because we have). The girls are all outside, a “reference” snowman has been built (with a bit of help from me), and the children are slowly appearing from all corners of nearby roads to play together.
Time to put the kettle on, and refuse to go back outside.