It's just not a beach Saturday today. Still about eighty degrees, but cloudy, raining and a bit windy, it's a stay-home-and-do-chores kind of day instead. And isn't Sam just thrilled!

Mark's taken it upon himself to face a job I hate ... defrosting the freezer. I'm a big believer in frost-free technology myself and resisted the purchase of a deep freeze that couldn't deal with its own ice. Mark chose economy over efficiency, however, so the build-up became his problem ... and Sam's joy.

It's snowing in our garden.

This kid was born in hot, humid, tropical Cambodia and has lived all of his three+ years since the age of thirteen weeks in hot, humid, tropical Seychelles, so what can he know for snow? He was all of about fourteen-months old when, handed a Christmas card displaying a typical English winter scene, he shivered and said, very unexpectedly: Cold!

"A Christmas Story" and "Polar Express" are big favorites, and not just for the gift angle; the scenes with kids in snow are what really get him. He watches with a longing intensity as Ralphie and Randy run through snow-covered streets and roll around in the white stuff, bundled up in ways Sam can only admire without any experience of how it feels to have an icy face, but a toasty tummy. The animated kid in "Polar Express" makes more sense to him, as he's outside in his pajamas and robe ... why not?

Someday, we'll take him to a place where it's cold, where snow is a fact and where he can sled or slide or ski or whatever, but for now he's happy enough sticking his bare feet in freezer defrosting detritus and letting his imagination take him to the North Pole.