First Time

I love the snow.

Not the mucky slush that slides grey over the pavements, I mean real snow – tumbling flakes and crunchy underfoot and cold down the back of my neck. I love to be out in it – I’ve walked in snow, camped in it, cycled in it, fought in it and fucked in it. It elates and intrigues me.

I love thunderstorms, crashing and passionate extremes of wild weather. I love wind-thrashed seas pounding on the shingle and the icy douse of the glittering spray.

And I love the sun – I turn my face to it and feel it lift my heart.

This morning, it was snowing – properly snowing, not the desultory sneeze I glimpsed through my hangover on Easter Sunday morning. As I watched, it blanketed the grass, softened the trees and a muffled quiet settled with the flakes.

My son has never seen real snow. While I broke the garden’s perfection with my cherry-red Docs, he stood in my bedroom window, his cub nose pressed against the cold glass. He wanted to go out in it, but was wide-eyed and wary and had to know it was safe.

When he came outside, he wouldn’t put his feet in the white stuff. He tracked in my bootprints to the sounds of the neighbourhood’s kids shrieking with glee. Then he stood, staring, as they pelted each other with snowballs and squalled defiance of the chill.

A couple of snowballs in the face, though, and he got the idea.

We joined in too – four thirty-something Mums giggling like girls as we dodged the incoming bombardment. We built the ubiquitous snowman and were pushing the kids round the garden in Joshua’s mini-Jeep, stopping to kick the caked snow from its tyres.

There were tears and tantrums, wet feet and and cold fingers, and a very excited dog. There was laughter and elation and excitement; there were kids soaked from head to foot and Mums yowling encouragement and offering cuddles.

There’s something about snow that just brings out the child in all of us.

It was a magical first experience for my small son.

And a new one for me as I’ve never taken – or tried to edit – a video before. I wouldn’t have done this one, but for @joec0914.

Amazing, the things that Twitter makes you do.