Snow business

We had the most joyous awakening.

We opened the curtains to find several inches of snow on the ground, and a thick veil of it still whirling excitingly along the street.

I do not think that there is any more thrilling start to the day, even now that I am grown up.

Normally snow does not stop us from going to work. In fact, in the olden days, when I used to go to work, it could occasionally happen that a jolly good blizzard would considerably enhance the taxi takings. This was because none of the other taxi drivers, who had all got shiny cars with expensively polished hire purchase agreements, wanted to risk an unexpected encounter with a lamp post, and so stayed at home.

Our taxis are clapped out wrecks, purchased from Lakeside Taxis when they were considered to be beyond any kind of economically viable repair, so a few more dents here and there have never made much difference. You do not earn any more money in gleaming streamlined taxis than you do in a couple of  bashed-up scruffy ones.

Also it has always helped very much that we don’t have garage bills, because of Mark fixing them himself. This parsimonious approach to our career choice has always meant all the more cash to pour into the endlessly flowing river of school fees.

Hence we have had plenty of practice at driving in snow, most especially Mark, who used to race Land Rovers in his rascally youth.

Today, however, with no bonus to be had from grateful stranded passengers, we looked happily out of the window at the snow, and thought, in the interests of health and safety, how much more sensible it would be to stay at home.

The snowploughs had not been out by that time, so we thought prudently how very long it would have taken Mark to get all the way to Barrow. You cannot rush along a narrow country road that is full of other people stuck in snowdrifts, even if you have got snow chains and a can-do attitude.

In fact our reprehensible shirk had actually been made possible by my parents having generously  donated some cash for Mark to have an extra day off, actually a couple of days off.

They had kindly thought that we would like to have some Bonding Family Time with Lucy, but after some discussion over coffee we thought that the best thing we could do to make Lucy love us very much would be to get Oliver out of her bedroom, so we decided that we would get on with the painting.

We did not do this straight away. Instead we bellowed for Oliver to get out of bed, because he has a late start on Tuesdays, and told him excitedly that we were going to go and play in the snow.

He staggered down the stairs a bit reluctantly, but he came anyway.

We collected Pepper on the way out, and all three dogs belted along excitedly, barking at the wind and chasing snowflakes. We threw Pepper’s tennis ball for them at first, so that they could charge about after that, but they kept losing it in snowdrifts. We spent so much time hunting for it and digging it out that eventually Mark retrieved it and stuck it back in his pocket to save us an apology when we got back.

The dogs were disappointed about this,  so we threw snowballs instead, which they chased with great excitement, but some mystification, because of course they exploded like little white bombs as soon as they hit the ground, not to be discovered no matter how much they snuffled and sneezed. The dogs, not the snowballs, obviously.

It was absolutely ace snow.

It was wet and heavy, rubbish for skiing, not that I have ever been skiing, but I know these things due to a family connection. Instead, it was absolutely perfect for building snowmen, and Mark and Oliver built three, because the snow rolled up so wonderfully easily.

We played in the snow until our fingers and toes started to hurt, after which we went home to paint Oliver’s bedroom.

We have not even nearly finished this, partly because we ran out of paint.

Ah well.

There is a picture of the snow. Spot which one is Oliver.