I’m not going to deny it, like an 8 year old child I still get overcome with excitement at the prospect of a good snow day!

Yes, it makes a lot of work. The water pipes to the animals get frozen up and we have to lug buckets of water around. The roads are unpredictable so it makes getting stock from the farm to customers more difficult. Schools and children’s activities get closed or cancelled so it throws plans into disarray. YET I LOVE IT!

Here’s why:

1. It’s a challenge

There’s a word that really grates on me this time of year due to its overuse by weather and news reporters: Treacherous! But even though it grates on me, the ill-prepared English roads can get pretty treacherous pretty quickly. Yet there’s nothing like the excitement you get from this challenge being laid down before you. Customers need this food, it’s our job to get it to them! We have 4 wheel drive, we can make it. Load up the truck! Put a shovel and a flask in the back, and set sail. The scenery is amazing, and you get to take it all in while traveling at 4mph! It might take us hours, but when we get there (and we have never failed yet), sailing past abandoned Tesco lorries with a smug smile, we feel like we have won Olympic gold in the quality food games!

2. I hate living to a routine

I’ll admit it, the mundane everyday routine is not my thing. I am dreading Arthur starting school in September and having to be tied to the school run 5 days a week! Our life is quite unusual and we make plans as we go, always doing something different and rolling with the punches. We don’t have set meal times, and before children I couldn’t image the amount of ‘routine’ I’d get used to doing. It’s taken me 4 years to get bed time back to anything near 7:30/8pm! But even though it’s not my thing, I still do all the routine, I’ve got used to it…but a snow day, well that changes everything! Everything is closed or cancelled, and I love it. Suddenly it doesn’t matter what time we eat, or when we do which jobs. We have a day that we are free to move things around and change our plans and I love it.

3. Yes you have to do more outside but at least it’s not muddy!

So the water freezes and carrying buckets of water is time consuming. But it’s beautiful outside! And walking around in the snow is a welcome break from slopping and slipping around in the mud, that we would otherwise be experiencing in the winter on the farm!

4. You get to see everything with the excitement of a child

This has to be on everyone’s ‘snow is awesome’ list. When you wake up in the morning and there’s a bright white light coming through the curtains, that you know can only mean one thing. “Arthur, Leo; open the curtains!” Only to be followed by the biggest expressions of pure and innocent joy and excitement as they discover the fluffy and undisturbed blanket of snow that has changed the outside world as they know it. And as you absorb all their excitement, you feel it too. You can’t help but not be drawn into it. So much so that when they next say “can we put our boots on and stamp in it?” Well only an ogre could say no!

5. The warm house

There is nothing that compares to a warm cosy house, with snow falling outside the window. It’s why we all dream of a white Christmas! A chance to be in the warm house, fire going, with nothing to do except enjoy each other’s company and get warm and cosy. Except it never snows at Christmas, it’s always on a day when you have a million jobs to do! Unless you can cancel them…

6. The get out of jail free card

Well if the school is shut, then I really shouldn’t have to do the 4 hours of paperwork I had planned for today should I? 😉

7. The food!

There’s is nothing quite like having time on your hands, shut in the house to cook. To make hearty food, to bake with the kids and of course, to sample all your efforts! The shop is always busy when it snows, so I know I’m not alone in this one!

<<<
now? Bring it on!