Winter Wonderland

Today

It's Christmas day. While Paul gets over his hangover, Becky catches up on sleep and Liz is off feeding her cats, I potter out to greet the day.

It's dry and dull and the temperature is probably just into double figures. On "The Weakest Link" the other day the question was "what is more likely on Christmas Day in England, rain or snow?" The obvious correct answer is rain.

In fact, I'm not at all certain where this white Christmas fantasy came from.

In My Day

We certainly didn't have white Christmases in London when I was a child. Snow in April was more likely than in December. Usually snow fell in January or February. Even the great cold winter of 62/63 started with snow on Boxing Day.

The weather here in the village is colder than in other parts of Somerset, being situated on the top of the hill, but it's much the same.

On Christmas Morning 1993, Paul was on the early shift, which meant he had to leave the house by 6.15 am. The girls got up early and went down to make the tea so that we could all open stockings together in comfort.

Suddenly Becky comes leaping up the stairs. "Look out of the window" she croaked in excitement. Expecting to see heavenly hosts gathered in the pre-dawn sky, I went and opened the curtains. The world was sheathed in thick snow.

Reluctantly, Paul heaved himself out of bed and got ready for the drive to Weston-Super-Mare. He nudged the car along the virgin snow lying across the Mendips. As he carefully drove down Burrington Coombe, he had his reward. There, casually walking across the road, was a whole herd of deer.

The girls and I went for a walk with the dog up to Cranmore Wood. Our neighbours at Yellow Marsh Farm were all playing rounders in the snowy fields, and in the wood itself, roe deer stepped majestically out into the path before us.

I heard a little boy in the Close this morning, enjoying his new bike, telling his dad how glad he was that there's no snow, because otherwise he wouldn't be able to ride it.