You know, it’s really good to have some kind of thematic unity to the weekly blog entry, but sometimes it happens, and sometimes it just doesn’t. Usually it’s a bit like a poem (only much, much quicker) and the theme doesn’t emerge until I get towards the end. If it emerges at all, I mean.

 

So first things first. SNOW DAY. Kids off school having snowball fights and making snowmen. A party atmosphere at Alexandra park where sleds and snowboards vied cheerfully for the best hills and the dog went bananas. In a good way. I could have walked all day in that snow. What was it about the snow that seemed to bring out the best in everyone? I felt as if I was in some weird kind of Shirley Hughes (children’s picture book writer) land of community and good spirits. Then onto the silent parkland walk, the path they’ve built beside the old railway line, where all was still and muffled and the occasional tree would shake down a bit of snow as if it were saying hello. Absolutely spiritually uplifting. And I say that without a trace of irony.

 

Earlier, my older daughter had gone out with some friends sledding. They came back pink-cheeked and snowy and I made a huge jug of hot chocolate for them and put out a plate of chocolate chip cookies. Just some marshmallows, a few sprinkles and perhaps some of that cream you squirt out of a can, and I would have been an American Mom. So I made them some popcorn for good measure.

 

Maybe it was more like The Waltons than Shirley Hughes. Hard to say. The day had its phases.

 

I should mention The Shuffle, a reading series I help to organise. On Saturday night there was record attendance. Absolutely full to the rafters, with people sitting on the floor and trailing up the stairs. Wasn’t Yevtoshenko, the Russian poet, famous for reading poetry with all his acolytes sitting on cushions around him in the 1960s? It was a fantastic evening; some great poetry, good schmoozing and the cafe must have done good business. Lucky we got there before the snow.

 

Ah! What do you know? Thematic unity. Or at least a segue into my snow rhapsody. So tomorrow will be another snow day. More walks in the winter wonderland. And who knows? Maybe some poetry sometime in the not too distant future.