Snow day

As many did all over the British Isles this morning, I woke up to snow. As a student, it presented a perfect opportunity to create a snowman, something which I haven't done in possibly over ten years. 

This could potentially be that we have had no considerable snow fall in a long time, or that, i was too busy "growing up" to care. It is only when you get older you really reflect on your past and how you behaved and that when your young, you are too focussed on being grown up, you forget to be your own age.

I remember the day my dad taught me to build a snow man. I would only be about three, and he bent down to me, pouching and compressing a small amount of snow into his hands and then into ground. He whispered to me, "Now Charly-pops, we have to roll the snow, like we are making a big snow ball to make the body." And so we did, we wrapped the snow up off the ground into the giant snow ball growing bigger and bigger in size. From the eyes of a three year old, it looked enormous, but now it would probably be barely anything at all. I can remember my dad calling that snow man "Claude". The winter after we were also blessed with snow, and again, we made a snow man, this time called "Pierre".

This is a really poignant memory to me and its still has resonance today. As I constructed my snowman, I considered the technique my dad had taught me all those years ago, and created my man. Alas, his structure is something left to be desired as there is limited snow in my back garden at university and my flat mate Becky, began her snow man before mine. Afterwards we admired our work. I decided to call my snow man Claude, and suggested to Becky, hers to be called Pierre. She liked it. Sometimes its nice to revisit your childhood, no matter how old you are.