Everything was different for a little bit. As the snow fell on Friday, my husband rushed into town to join the last-minute sledge hunters, who would pay any price to get their hands on a glorified plastic tray.

We picked our son up from preschool and his eyes lit up as he saw the new toy. Our daughter didn’t know what to do with it at first and was scared to sit in it. But they were soon whizzing around the snow-filled streets, pulled along by Daddy.

The next morning we layered up, donning gloves and hats, and ventured out to the park. We seemed to be the only ones awake. The children loved the novelty of being pulled around in their little blue sledge together, watching the world go by, scraping snow from walls and making “very, very big snowballs”.

Having fun in the snow.

The eldest loved whizzing down the slopes and while littlest was not quite so sure, she gave it a go. We made a snowman with a carrot nose and the littlest loved him so much that she kept giving him a kiss and then cried because she wanted him to come home with her.

The children loved it for all of twenty minutes, before their faces started turning various degrees of blue, purple and yellow and we thought we had better call it a day. Fortunately there is a pub on the way home and we stopped off for a quick bite to eat and a ‘tiztee’, (fizzy drink), which bought everyone’s energy back up to strength and face colour back to normal.

A fresh snow fall is romantic, it halts normal life and that is mostly why it is so wonderful, for a day at least. A few days later, though, and the novelty is starting to wear off. Being outside is painful. Things keep being cancelled, the pushchair doesn’t work in the slush and my son keeps falling over. I also think the house might collapse under mountains of dripping wet clothes.

Whilst sulking about the on-going freezing cold weather, a friend suggests going sledging at Merrow Golf Club.

The joys of making a snowman.

I agree and psyche myself up for being cold again for another two hours. But on arrival, I am amazed at how wonderful the place looks! Guildford’s own ski resort! Lovely long slopes, still lots of gorgeous, crunchy snow, and only us and two other people there. The snow wins out in the end and continues to enchant despite the numb fingers and runny noses.

After a few runs down the slope, we realise we can’t feel our toes and decide to stop for flapjacks. The littlest suddenly has a meltdown and won’t let me put her down and the eldest won’t get in the sledge and is running away from me and up another slope. I manage to stop him in his tracks with the yelled promise of fish finger sandwiches when we get home, and he turns back and runs towards me. For by far the loveliest reward for being out in the snow is the promise of going back to a warm house at the end of it.