Snow: "IT'S BORING AND RUBBISH"

Official photojournalism from the Shire: sock monkeys, seemingly oblivious of their African origins

Official words from a small child, in a playground, that I grumpily trudged by around 9.20 this morning. Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings, eh? Ok, so there was also a kid grabbing onto the railings shouting 'GET ME OUTTA HERE' but we'll only stick to the relevant outbursts.

Technically this is my second snow-based post, not including the one from the Dolomites, home of deep, crispy and even sneh. But if BBC News can spend two mornings in a row reporting solely on the weather then Bowlface is definitely qualified to. Thank god there's loud whispers of an anti-Gordon ballot, for a change in news if not greater political reasons.

I opened my front door and promptly plomped a DM into a DM-high amount of snow. Not the best way to start a twenty minute walk. Good job the shouty kids came up 200 yards later. Then a tiny spaniel puppy was being dragged down some steps similarly covered in snow. That was quite good too.

Other snow adventures include the man towel-drying a dog and a massive increase in fur hats. Granted, it is the only real time I crack the Russian hat out, what with it being double the size of my head and looking thoroughly ridiculous in a non-Siberian context. Watching brave souls wobble about on bikes in the stuff is also slightly lessening the pain that my beloved bicycle Joan is still wrapped up inside my lounge. The fact my head is not inside a helmet is third reason why fur is a justifiable casing. Otherwise, it's unnecessarily cold, makes everywhere difficult to get to and is putting me in a thoroughly Scroogey mood. I can't even appreciate how pretty is because of the size of the fur hat.

A man on Radio 4 said it might last til March. Heaven forbid. If kids are bored already, massive social unrest will definitely break out. At least if the grit's running out there's less chance of it coming at me hidden in a snowball.

Bowlface Poleface

The sport gene, because obviously such a thing totally exists, has always been absent in the Bowlface pool. My greatest achievement was making it into the top group for hockey at school, and that was solely because my violent wielding of the sticks could only be dealt with by the sporty girls. This alone has had me marked as 'the sporty one' in the family - pretty much representative of our sporting prowess.
Therefore, the notion of a mass family venture to the Dolomites for skiing purposes needed to be seen to be believed. Whilst other chalet guests were arriving with reflective visor helmets, all-in-one jumpsuits (actually, never advisable on a skier of any skill) and their own, foot-moulded boots; we happily got on with wobbling around in the hire shop.
First morning, kitted up and almost looking convincing, we headed down to the ski school to join a load of tiny children and Daniella, our Italian instructor. Considering he had probably once been a 'bucket baby', mewing happily by snow ramps from infancy and parallel-turning down the slopes from the age of two and a half, his patience with us was remarkable. Not least as I sped backwards down the slope, arse out, and landed head first in a pile of snow, a la Bridget Jones, instantly after clicking into my skis.
As the morning went on I almost recovered my dignity as Daniella taught us the 'bars-ick position' and how to turn towards the 'vall-ay'.
By the afternoon Bro and I had made our way up to the blue run, down which my arse also had a large amount of contact with the snow. In between avoiding poles to the face, wrestling with ski lifts, skis flying down slopes of their own accord and counting leg bruises, like a seven year old in the bath, we'd managed to tackle the slopes with a kind of graceless ability by midweek.
Bombardino (hot alcoholic custard with cream on top)-induced or otherwise, I'm hooked. Skiing, 1, Bowlface anti-sport gene, nil.