Snow. Bloody snow. Harry is about as excited as I’ve ever seen him. To him snow means Christmas. December also means Christmas. Snow on the 1st of December has seen him almost incandescent with excitement.
Me?
Not so much.
Last year it snowed too. The most I’ve known it snow for years. I couldn’t drive the car. The roads were treacherous and I haven’t been driving for long enough to feel confident heading out with two small children on board. Joe’s pram can’t manage the snow either so, for a couple of weeks, we were stuck in the house. I actually quite enjoyed it. I’m inherently lazy and would probably never leave the house if I
didn’t have to, so once I knew that I actually couldn’t, I just thought ‘hurrah’ and stayed in my pyjamas for days on end.
So not having a car this year probably won’t make that much difference. The thing is, winter is the worst time to have a car.
Actually, it’s probably not a bad time to have a good car – one where you can press a button (I assume you press a button) and the windows miraculously clear – but we’ve never had a car like that. I’ve spent the last two winters heading outside up to half an hour early to scrape and spray and scrape some more.
Not fun.
And then last winter was so cold (and my car so knackered) that the windscreen froze on the inside too. So I had to scrape outside then climb in and scrape inside too, getting covered in ice myself in the process. Frequently, I’d clear the car, bundle the kids in, set off for school and within a couple of minutes, have to stop to clear it again. Some days I literally had to scrape the inside of the screen WHILE DRIVING. It wasn’t safe. But what was the alternative?
This year I’m not yet sure what the alternative is. As I’m writing this, there’s a blizzard outside and I know I can’t get back to school to pick Harry up. David’s parents have been completely fantastic about collecting him in bad weather, but they’re busy today. And so David’s going to leave work early and pick Harry up on the way home. We’re lucky that his employer is flexible enough for him to do that, but it’s not a viable option for every day. So if the snow stays, who knows what we’re going to do.
I joked to Harry’s teacher that I may have to homeschool him until the snow clears.
It may turn out not to have been a joke at all.
—
Keris Stainton
Debut novel DELLA SAYS: OMG! out now
“Confidence-boosty sex-positive first love goodness. This could be
the Forever of the 21st century, girls…” – Susie Day, author of Big Woo! and
Girl Meets Cake
