There's No Business Like Snow Business

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow. Well, if you insist.

And London did, because a large urban metropolis is hardly capable of objecting to weather patterns. Each street was a giant asphalt tongue trying to catch as many snowflakes as possible. Cars were concealing themselves under piles of white powder, hoping that someone would be foolish – or drunk – enough to mistake them for a small, frosty mountain and dive head-first into a trip to the emergency room.

Somehow the snowfall had managed to occur with me remaining completely oblivious to it. As I’ve been living a life of seclusion that would make an elderly Howard Hughes look like a social butterfly of late, the outside world is moving ever closer to becoming nothing more than a myth to me. As such, I spend a lot of time hidden behind curtains, occasionally peeking out in the hope that I will witness the kind of vaguely criminal behaviour that will see me stumble my way into a Hitchcock film.

I’d taking one glance out of the window that afternoon, enough to assure me the street had yet to be sucked into a gaping abyss, and had once again retired to the couch to clutch my head and make an assortment of monosyllabic grunts that were intended to convey self pity. I was hung-over. At that point in time, the streets were clear, the sky was cloudy and it looked exactly like the same diorama I see any other day.

Hours later and Laureen returns from being elsewhere that isn’t home. I’ve heard such places exist.

‘It’s snowing quite heavily out there.’ Immediately I thought she was talking in code about a large quantity of cocaine trafficking happening on our street, because I prefer to jump to the most illogical conclusions first and work my way backwards. After ruling out any possibility that she was referring to dandruff or coconut-covered desserts in any way, I decided to look out the window again and check for myself. And, wowsers in my trousers, in a few short hours the world had gotten a lot whiter.

It wasn’t a light cover either; the streets had been blanketed with snow. And, following that, someone had decided a snow doona had also been required. I quickly realised it would be unsafe for me to live someone that receives frequent, heavy snowfall, as I would easily be able to be snowed in without realising, trapping me inside and forcing me to eat my own half-frozen limbs for sustenance. And with my limbs, that’s only about a day’s worth of food. On second thought, my freaky leg muscle would probably stretch it to two.

This wasn’t the first time I’d experienced snow; I’ve been to the snowfields before. This was an entirely different experience though. When you go to the snowfields, you’re going there with the distinct expectation of seeing snow-covered mountains; in fact, you’re usually paying a lot of money for the privilege. In the heart of urban sprawl though, it’s something else. It doesn’t belong – at least when you come from Queensland it doesn’t and I wasn’t quite sure how to react. It’s kind of like clowns: If you go to a circus you’re expecting to see them, whereas if you come across one on the side of the street you want to run it down in your car. In hindsight, not the best analogy, but still a stern warning to any clowns I see wandering the streets.

My hangover now replaced with a sense of giddy glee at the strange new scene out my window, there was now only one thing for me to do: Frolic.

The snow is at its best when it has just fallen, yet to be crushed under the feet and wheels that the next day will bring. My street looked completely different. The snow served us an airbrushing for the world, covering up all the blemishes – dirty roads, cracked sidewalks, and, in the centre of London, probably some homeless people – and lending an air of magic to proceedings. All we had to sacrifice was a little traction. And if you ask me, anything that increases the chance of fat kids hilariously falling over is fine with me.

Clearing my schedule for the next day – a task that I was able to do so quickly that I think I may have gone back in time slightly – I formulated a plan to spend the next day wandering, enjoy the chance to experience life inside a snow globe while I had it. And if by chance I came across one of falling fatties, then I would make sure my finger was adequately stretched for the pointing and the laughing.

Fast-forward to the next morning, and the first thing I think when I wake: ‘Dammit, it’s stopped snowing. Just my luck.’ Opening the curtains I realised that not only was I wrong, but Psychic Weatherman had just been taken off the table as a possible career option. For anyone interested, it’s now been filed away in my ‘Future Television Pitches Doomed to Failure’ folder instead.

After a lengthy period umming and ah-ing over whether wearing my entire wardrobe to stave off the cold would be considered excessive, I eventually decided against it. Not least of all because large pieces of wooden furniture do nothing for my figure. Settling on layers of clothing thick enough to keep me warm and cushion me during any falls, I put on my only pair of shoes that featured something close to traction and set off out the door.

The snow crunched under my feet, sometimes more than I was expecting; my foot submerged in an icy cavern as I discovered patches of snow were much deeper than they initially seemed. I fortunately discovered at this point that my shoes were indeed entirely waterproof; a fact I had yet to be entirely sure of. So far in the battle between me and frostbite, I was winning. It was an unfamiliar sensation.

Snowball wars were breaking out on the streets. I weaved in and out of some, while getting caught in another as a young girl started tossing them at me from behind a car. I surprised her and myself by catching the things whole and launching them back. At the same time I displayed excellent restraint by not tackling her to the ground and shoving her head into the snow for being enough of a smartass to throw them at me in the first place. Her parents standing next to her and not being positive that she wouldn’t be able to overpower me may have also been deciding factors.

When I reached the park that I had only been wandering a scant two days earlier, before the sky started suffering severe dandruff, it was not the same place. It had been replaced by its doppelganger that looked like – save for the few dots of colour springing from people’s jackets – it hard been torn straight out of a black and white movie. Any moment now I was going to come across Charlie Chaplin soundlessly performing slapstick physical comedy. Then freak out and attack the undead silent film star with a fence paling. I don’t care if he’s a screen legend, I still don’t want him cracking open my skull and feasting on its creamy centre.

An army of snowmen had sprung up overnight, each one of them plotting the demise of the human race, spurred on by their bitter resentment of our ability to withstand mild to warm temperatures and eat soup. I wondered if the many large snowballs littered around the park were once the lower torsos of other snowmen and how, if they were, it was doing nothing to dispel their vendetta against us. You could see it in their – oh yes, I’m about to go there – icy stares. Oh no I didn’t.

The snowmen were not the only jealous ones, as many people in the park who weren’t me were enjoying themselves on sled. I searched around for anything I could use as a makeshift toboggan, or any isolated children I could steal from, with no success. And prior experience has taught me that sliding down on your stomach only ends with the front of your pants full of snow and the sensation that your testicles may have been jammed in the door of a freezer.

So I made do with what I could do. I made a snow angel for the first time. I attempted, and failed, to catch a snowflake on my tongue, unsure if that spoke to the difficulty of the task or my own lack of coordination. I undid all my previous good work with snowballs by showing adeptness for inaccuracy. I even stumbled across a snow couch, which, when someone mistook me for its creator, I foolishly forgot to lie and take credit for. There was even a snow TV in front of it. Lousy reception though.

After several hours walking in a winter wonderland, I headed home with one more item on my checklist left to complete: Build my own snowman. His home would be the walk up to our front door. So I built him, only small, as I didn’t want to be intimidated and, seeing as my gloves weren’t waterproof, there was only so much building I was willing to do before the lack of sensation in my hands became a concern. I named him Godfrey, and made sure he knew that I created him, therefore I could destroy him. Mother Nature ended up taking care of that though. Over the next couple of days Godfrey went from being severely malnourished to severely non-existent. He will be missed.

And so will the snow. And you know what? I didn’t see one fat kid fall over. Talk about disappointing.