Slippery Slope

Today

Snow; quite a lot of it. Although I don't trust those panic-stricken news reports which mainly exist to pander to newsreaders' self-importance, it's true that it's been very cold.

The snow has been fine and powdery, so not very slidey where it hasn't been driven on. Yesterday I persuaded Paul to come out for a walk up the lane.He agreed, although he then grumbled about being cold for half the walk. "You just need to get your metabolism working" I said knowledgeably "then you'll warm up. The trouble is you don't exercise enough. Crikey!" I added "I sound like my Mother!" I was very snug inside my down-filled body-warmer which may have had something to do with my patronising attitude.

As we walked back down the steep bit of Susannah's lane, Paul assisted me. "It's not really slippery," I said "But I lack physical confidence. I don't know which of my parents had the worst attitude: Daddy who thought that all exercise for girls was wrong or Mamma with her "stuff and nonsense" attitude."

In My Day

We quite often had snow, post-Christmas, when I was a child. The album shows many a picture with 4BH swathed in white. Mamma would frequently shoo us all out with an instruction to play in the snow. Chris would make slides and abandon himself to the dangerous pleasures of whizzing downhill unstoppably. I was more scared than excited by this and would never trust myself to follow suit.

Making and throwing snowballs was safer but could get a bit dull and, anyway, as our gloves were always woollen, our hands quickly became wet and cold. Little ice balls would entwine around the fibres of the wool before soaking uncomfortably inwards.

And I don't remember any snowmen, although I'm sure some were made.

In fact, as soon as I could, I'd be back indoors by the fire with a book, hoping Mamma wouldn't find me and shoo me out again. All of which makes my attitude to Paul even more absurd.

I tried cross-country ski-ing a couple of years ago and found that I was very good at one part of it - falling over.