A DAD'S LIFE:Screams of joy as we awaken to a blanket of white, writes ADAM BROPHY
WHEN I nip to the lav during the night (nice I know, but this is a personal column) I can see by the light of a 1,000 watt moon that the country is blanketed in white. It’s hard but I resist the urge to wake the girls and tell them.
That morning they’re screaming in the door before the alarm goes off. They can smell snow, or else they’re the biggest bluffers every other day when we have to drag them kicking by the ankles from their scratchers. Yeah, you can go outside, but not for too long, we have to get to school, you still have to get dressed.
Come back in, you’re not making a snowman in your nightie. Seriously, it’s six inches thick, it won’t melt in the next couple of minutes, calm down, get some perspective and put your clothes on.
Perspective goes out the window. This is the deepest, thickest, most lustrous snow they’ve ever seen. Over the past two years they have been teased. A flurry would blow in one morning and they’d demand to be allowed stay home and scrape the flakes off the grass. I would deny them, and all that would be left by the time school was over was a grey mucky sludge. A teasing sludge, one I was wholly responsible for.
This year, they eye me with the gunslinger stare. Do we have to go to school? Yes. Will this be here when we’re finished? Yes . . . I am certain of it . . . yes. (It bleedin’ better be or the snow-related therapy bills will be monstrous.)
It’s a matter of feeding them spoons of muesli as we chase them round the garden, ducking missiles en route, but we get them fuelled and cleaned and convince them they have to leave.
We bought a four-wheel drive for days like this and I won’t see it wasted. The hill down from the house hits near 45 degrees at one point but, on near virgin snow, the baby Landie handles it sweetly. We twist onto the road at the bottom without a slide and plough on. Flakes start to fall and a wind picks up.
Joining the main road into Clonakilty cars lie twisted in the ditch, abandoned. My smugness knows no bounds. The girls squeal as I suggest practising my Tokyo Drift, but I don’t chance it.
We work our way through town, visibility at about six metres, the few cars dopey enough to be on the road moving at walking pace. Snowball wars whirr around us, but my two haven’t twigged, for some unfathomable reason, that the kids involved aren’t on their way to lessons. I move on, loving the drive.
We make the school and pile out up to the front door. The principal eyes us. What are you doing here? There’s no one here. Will ye go on home?
All right back in the car girls. There’s singing and dancing in the back seat. There’s super whooping. I knew they’d appreciate no school more if it was granted at the last moment. Pleasure is all in the tease.
The route home is uphill and, even without any off-road driving experience or four-wheel drive training, I have a faith in my motor that can only be put down to watching too many Top Gear repeats on Dave.
We’re a little distracted on the way, discussing the size of the snowman we plan to build and the artillery that can be developed, but I’m already half-way up the final 45-degree incline when I realise we’re in trouble.
The lane is narrow, I’m in first and fishtailing into the narrow ditch. Handbrake on and hope we don’t slide. She holds. The younger starts to cry, looking backwards at the ski jump we’ve ridden partly up. I tell the elder to grab her sister, get out of the car and walk up the hill. She’s surprisingly nimble and, for once, does what she’s told without question.
The options are to leave the car and block the lane or go for it. Foot goes down and wheels spin, smoke pouring from my new rubber. The few neighbours on the hill come out for a squint. An audience I could do without.
If we were fishtailing before, now we’re positively rocking. The backside spins from side to side only grinding to a fortuitous slow stop just before hitting each time. I lash on the power, reluctant to let the revs down now that I’ve smelt burning. Hung for a sheep, eh? She grabs, straightens up and sweeps home.
Have never enjoyed snow so much. We’re building an igloo.