Finally, after days of ‘nearly’, we woke to settled snow. I couldn’t wait to get out in the garden to play with it, but Mum said we had to eat breakfast first. My brother and me speed-spooned the breakfast cereal down and stood patiently as Mum stuck us in jumpers, jackets, and boots so’s not to catch a cold. Bruv, being older than me (and far more impatient) was made ready first and flew out into the back garden to make his best snowman while I was still being fitted with mittens.
Mum had a busy day ahead having to clean the house ‘from top to bottom’ and wasn’t able to stand and watch us. She placed me onto the thick white carpet outside the kitchen door, her warning to my brother not to throw snowballs at me was met with an uninterested smirk. The snow made a squeaky noise as I scrunched it in my hands, and icy globules glued onto the woolly mittens as I made balls to throw at the pear tree. After stomping about for a bit I decided to embark on my own snowman, which may not be as big as my brother’s work but perfectly formed. I picked a location on the patio, near the now submerged flower bed, collecting my snow from where the lawn usually was.
Part-way through building ‘Mr Frosticle’ I realised how much of the stuff was required for my vision to take shape. This was going to take some time. The compacted icy particles on my mittens had begun to permeate through the wool, and I felt the chill. A plan formulated in my five-year-old mind. Bruv was ensconced in his own work of art and didn’t notice me go to get my wooden block trolley from the living room. Devoid of it’s blocks I dragged the trolley back to winter wonderland, loaded it carefully with Mr Frosticle’s partially formed body and brought him into the kitchen where I could work without being cold. Genius.
Happy in the warm I would now make my best snowman, maybe a snowwoman too, even an entire family, the possibilities were endless. I left Mr Frosticle on the linoleum kitchen floor and went to collect more snow. Upon delivery of my second trolley load to the kitchen I noticed Mr Frosticle had lost weight. I went to get another load and returned to find that he had been stolen altogether. I was disgruntled. I felt it wasn’t nice to take someone else’s work, they should get their own snow. However, undeterred at the injustice I went to collect some more. I got a nice big load this time. This took a while as Bruv called me over to show off what he’d done. This turned out to be an ambush and he dumped a double handful of snow on my head without first having to chase me.
Returning with my over-sized load to my own creation in the kitchen I was annoyed to find that the snow thief had struck again, and this time taken all my building material. I felt now was really the time I should lodge a complaint and thankfully Mum turned up at that very moment in the kitchen doorway to hear it. Before I could speak it became apparent she wasn’t open to hearing complaints at that time.
Some years later I moved to Spain where so far no-one has stolen my sandcastles.