Oh the weather outside is frightful...

Apparently we might have a white Christmas. Although it seems like we won't have one until 2012 if the predictions of a long range forecaster is anything to go by even if it has been freezin' for the past few nights and we have had a few flakes of snow

That would be a pity I love snow. 

It’s so white and clean and crisp and when the first snow falls every year I can stand fascinated for ages watching the snowflakes drift lazily to the ground. I guess some people are easily amused.

Of course when I say when the first snow falls I mean when snow falls at all. I mean it’s not like it happens a lot over the course of the year.

I remember when it happened last way back in January (I think) and when my girls called to say it had started snowing I stood at the window watching the snowflakes fall to the ground with a contented look on my face.

Umm did I say contented, I actually meant smug (more on that later). 

And did I say I love snow? I think maybe that should have been I hate the stuff.

Well okay, maybe not hate the stuff, but let’s just say I have been able to see through all that dazzling whiteness and am no longer taken in by it all.

For a start, and I’m not sure how many people out there have noticed this – when it snows it is usually damn cold.

Now if  I have to state a preference, I’d say I’m a temperature somewhere in the middle kinda guy, but if the choices were simply cold or warm, I think I’ll go for the warm every time.

I like my shower water to be warm, my coffee to be warm, the car to be warm, I really don’t do the whole cold thing that well at all.

Indeed I have been known to trek away to foreign climes in search of increased heat, but have never gone deliberately seeking out the cold.

But don’t get me wrong, snow is lovely if you have a great roaring fire on and you can sit in and look out at it falling to the ground and know that you don’t have to try and go anywhere until it has all melted away again.

Yes it’s lovely to look at for a while but most people know that when it snows we’re going to have to venture out into the big bad world through this crisp cold covering.

And there’s the thing you see. If it was just cold you could probably wrap up and try to ignore it, but it’s slippery too and maybe you didn’t know this, but that can be dangerous.

Which is why when the weather forecast tonight was suggesting temperatures as low as minus six and possible snow showers, I slapped the tv twice to make sure it wasn’t broken (come on now how many times do we get minus six?) and then promptly set about to put salt on my driveway.

That was not something that met with universal approval in my household and my girls looked at me as if I were some kind of monster as I scattered salt all over the driveway, but hey they don't have to try to drive on it.

I think they also probably recall that time last January when, salting done, I stood at the window as soon as I heard of the first fall with the look of an evil genius on my face watching for the first flakes landing on the driveway and wondering when they'd realise it was all a trap.

I stood there watching and ringing out my evil genius laugh ‘waaaah haaah haaah haaah...’

Well I would have, had I not been dragged out the back to throw snowballs and help make a snowman.

We must have been out for a couple of hours and it was great craic altogether...

I do hope we have a white Christmas. Man I love snow...