Brrrrr

It's said that the British always talk about the weather, but that's because we have so much of it. A week ago it was all sunshine, getting outside as much as possible, T-shirts, sunglasses, smearing sun block down our arms, and chucking the washing up water on the garden because we haven't had rain for a month.

Today there are snowdrifts on the North York Moors, and in much of Scotland. No snow here in the valley, but the rain has been lashing down, the wind is blowing the daffodils horizontal, and walking home from the station I may as well have been dragging a sledge through the Antarctic. What I need is a dragon.

When the children were small, they were at a delightful little school right on the North-East coast where the wind comes straight from Siberia and gathers strength on the way over. Survive that, you can survive anything. On snowy days, I took them to and from school on the sledge, which was a great treat. When it was just cold/wet/windy/any combination of, we had the dragon. Chrisogenus was an imaginary dragon, of course, but flying on an imaginary dragon can make the journey home a lot easier.

When we'd just read The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, it was the White With who sent the storm, but once we were in our house she couldn't get us. When we read The Children of Green Knowe, our house was the manor house with the moat around it, and we had to swim the moat to safety.

Perhaps I could have called up Chrisogenus the dragon today, to carry me home. Or perhaps stepping out of the cold to a warm house was enough, without any pretending.