Sunday 6 April 2008

Once upon a time...


La Fille woke up, pulled the curtains and shrieked with delight: "It's snowing. It's snowing. Look. Il neige."

I looked out of the window. It was blizzarding; clumps of whirling snowflakes dancing along the street like the ghosts of Christmas cards past. Everywere had been magically sprinkled white; fresh, untouched, virginal white. A few weeks ago we were in the French Alps and woke to a similar snowstorm, but this was April in south London. Curiously, only the previous afternoon we had been making pretend snowmen in the kitchen, hauling pretend balls up to make heads and sticking pretend carrots in them for noses.

La Fille stopped jumping up and down and shrieking. Her face clouded. "Oh no," she said. "I haven't brought my ski boots." What a very French reflection, I thought: see snow, think piste.

Out in the park there were real snowmen with real snowball heads and real carrots for noses. La Fille danced down the path past them squealing with delight again: "It's him, look it's him." "Who?" I asked. "THE Snowman."

2 comments:

Maggie May said...

Snow is magic to a child & it seemed you had a real snow storm to provide enough for snow men. We only had enough flakes to look magical for half an hour & then it was over, as though it had never happened!

Parisgirl said...

Yes it was very fleeting Maggie May, but as this just posted picture shows, the snowmen lasted slightly longer!