Since we moved to Thatcham, I think we have now had major snowfalls in four out of six winters. After Monday’s teaser shower, which left approximately two millimetres of light icing sugar on the ground, today we have had proper snow with (sleigh) bells on, with a steady fall leaving 8-10cm depth of powder at the time of writing.

At least we knew it was coming. As a result, I had made arrangements to work at home, we didn’t take Toby to pre-school and Isaac ended up in school only for the morning. As a result, as I’m sure parents of young kids will know all too well, post-lunch ‘working from home’ soon became ‘sledging and snowballing’ if you were Isaac and I, or ‘weeping no’ in Toby’s case. (He’s struggling to pronounce the letter ‘s’ – he actually means ‘sweeping snow’.)

So while Kara huddled inside the house staying warm (snow and crawling infants don’t really go together) and Isaac went hurtling down on his sled – the advantages of living at the top of a cul-de-sac on a hill – Toby was more than content brushing snow off our cars with his broom. Now if only I can get him to start clearing snow with a shovel later …

I don’t mind spending time outside like this with the kids, even though it means my working day becomes somewhat eviscerated once you have a session with the children and then followed it up with the inevitable shovelling and gritting. (Now there’s a stereotypical father’s job if ever there was one.) The kids love it so much and you just never know when you will see snow again, so it’s one of those things you just have to do. It may be my memory playing tricks on me, but I’m sure when I was a kid we only had major snowfalls like this once every three or four years.

Yes, there are downsides. My rear-wheel drive car has no chance of getting out of our estate any time soon. And we have had to postpone Toby’s birthday party – he turns three tomorrow – about which he seems not the slightest bit bothered, as well as the grandparents’ regular weekend visit. But in the greater scheme of things it’s no big deal. Certainly not when there’s ‘weeping’ to be done.

I think we’ll build a snowman tomorrow …