Waking up to a winter wonderland is sheer magic

Yesterday morning, just like every other morning, I walked down to the beach to swim in the North Sea. Except it wasn’t like any other morning. I knew, when I woke up, that the world had changed.

Sounds were muffled and it seemed brighter than usual outside. And that was before I’d even pulled back the curtains.

Once I did, I couldn’t stop smiling.

As JB Priestley put it: “The first fall of snow is not only an event, it is a magical event. You go to bed in one kind of a world and wake up in another quite different, and if this is not enchantment then where is it to be found?”

I opened the back door and Jagger, my English Setter, shot out like a cannonball, jumping, with sheer joy, to catch the snowflakes.

Snow makes us all five years old again, which is why it was so sad that one Dagenham school banned children from touching it – because if they threw packed snowballs, there might be a stone in them and that could cause injuries.

Don’t those teachers remember their first snowy day? You want to touch it, throw it, roll in it, build a snowman.

Get out on the hill, sit on a tin tray and shriek your way to the bottom, Miss Spoilsport!

I turned on the news. Trains cancelled. Roads closed. Panic buying. Misery and woe.

There was nothing about the sheer beauty, the complete “otherness” of snow, that benign blanketing which makes even waste bins look softly sculptured; the silent invasion – suddenly, it’s there and we rush outside.

“A beautiful sight, we’re happy tonight/ Walking in a winter wonderland.”

Snow makes us happy. Proper snow. Not a flurry, not grey slush, or “dreich” (as my Scottish husband says) sleety drizzle.

Yes, it causes disruption to roads and rails, but so do extreme heat, heavy rain, incompetent maintenance...

The Swiss are laughing at us and so is my friend Astrid, a formidable combination of Viking and New Englander, who zipped up her stylish arctic boots and set off on a four-hour cross-country drive yesterday without a second thought.

It’s been called the Beast from the East, but I live in the East and it doesn’t seem beastly at all.

In fact, it has a therapeutic effect. We’re nicer when we’re snowbound. We talk to strangers in the street and laugh with friends we don’t recognise because we’re all muffled up. Everyone exchanges greetings. Even in cities. My friend was clearing her path in west London and says she met more of her neighbours this week than she has in years.

We help each other. We push cars out of drifts, check on the housebound or unwell. “Do you need anything?” “Can I pick up your newspaper for you?”

And those who can’t get out sit by the window and marvel.

Because snow, itself, is exhilarating. That’s why skiing is so popular. But, honestly, you don’t need to strap on skis and throw yourself down a cliff. Just sit on a mountain top with a hot chocolate. Much cheaper. Because it’s not the skiing, it’s just being in snow that gives you that “zing”.

My Australian grandchildren live within a boomerang swing of Bondi Beach, where it’s 25 degrees. I sent them pictures of our snow-covered beach. “Wow! You’re so lucky, Nana! Wish we were there!”