WHAT'S the big idea with all this snow nonsense? It's practically March, and what's more, half-term was the week before last.

The days were getting longer, the blossom was on the trees and even in our back garden, the barren earth was being pierced by what look uncannily like daffs and tulips.

We'd even started thinking about packing away our winter wardrobe with all its miserable scarves, hats, gloves and wellies, in preparation for the day when we could step outside the door without nine layers of clothing to protect us from the arctic blast.

Now look at it. It's white, it's on the ground and it's going nowhere fast.

Granted, it's not proper snow - you know, the sort there used to be in the glory days of this once-great nation, when girls like me got a 'missing-you' telegram from our boyfriends because the telephone lines had been down for days and we could not spend hours murmuring sweet nothings to one another on our parents' phone bills.

But the cold snap is the nearest thing we've seen to winter this Millennium, and it's apparently here at least until next week, which is rather longer than my boyfriends used to last sometimes.

I believe a rational response to this weather is what is known as cocooning. You batten down the hatches, crank up the central heating and get in a batch of decent DVDs.

However, while I am the human equivalent of the three-toed sloth, my Other Half's counterpart is surely a juvenile border collie.

"Brilliant!" he yelled as he opened the bedroom curtains. "It's been snowing ALL NIGHT! Let's go sledging!"

I'm not sure how I managed to contain my joy.

I pulled the duvet over my head for a millisecond; then it was yanked from the bed, I was frogmarched half-asleep through my morning routine, ordered into my warmest clothes and shoved into the passenger seat as Shep started up the Peugeot and nosed it in the direction of Rosedale Bank.

I know I need to be more spontaneous, but it's hard to ignore a car radio droning on about jack-knifes and tailbacks, thermos flasks and blankets.

I needed to divert my anxiety into a more productive channel - ah yes, what about dwelling on the fact I'd never once been sledging?

This worked a treat. I didn't even notice how much worse the roads were getting until we suddenly parked up, got out of the car and started trudging up Rosedale Chimney with red plastic sledges under our arms.

I would have to confess, because my novice status would be clear to the smallest child on the slopes.

When I admitted the truth, the Collie laughed uproariously for what I thought was an unnecessarily long time, then cast aspersions on my parents.

"Well, I could read by the age of three," I said. This only made him laugh harder.

On my first run, he stopped chortling long enough to point out that to use your legs as brakes the whole way down the hill is rather defeating the object. "I'm doing a snowplough, like in skiing," I said, before face-planting into a five-foot drift.

The second time, I got the full sergeant-major treatment. Legs IN the sledge! Legs in the sledge NOW! You are NOT going to hurt yourself, you are NOT going fast enough!

My resentment was such that I hardly noticed my stomp back up the hill, but strangely enough, it vanished on the way back down again.

Wheee! There is a point to winter after all.

Updated: 10:18 Wednesday, February 23, 2005