The snow? All my fault. Sorry.

I am really sorry and I most humbly apologise but I think all this snow may be my fault. You see a week or two ago R6 was looking forward to her birthday which is on Thursday.

"Why does it never snow on my birthday?" she asked looking grumpy.

"I'm sorry R6," I said. "It just never does."

"I want it to snow on my birthday."

"I'm sure you do darling, but don't get your hopes up because it won't. It just doesn't. It snows on H8's birthday (February) and Daddy's birthday (also February) but never yours, or mine (August) for that matter."

R6 was not impressed.

We reminisced for a while about H8's sixth birthday when we took Hnewly6, R4 and H's friend G6 to a soft play centre in Cardigan. It was a little snowy when we left and we spent a few happy hours eating fish and chips, playing (the kids) and drinking coffee (B and I) while my mobile phone rang impotently in my bag with Mum trying to warn me that there was a blizzard on the Preselis. When we came out the roads were virtually impassable and we had to take the low road home at a crawl. Being stuck on a road in your car as an adult is not fun, add your children and somebody else's to the mix and it becomes doubly stressful. The hour and three quarters of an hour we took to do a stretch of road that normally took 15 minutes was the longest of my life.

But no, it was never going to snow on R6's seventh birthday. I was pretty sure of that when she asked me two weeks ago.

Actually it might.

Actually it already has.

It isn't R6's birthday until Thursday but she's more than satisfied with the snowfall we had on Friday which meant her school closed at lunchtime. It may have been just under a week early but as far as R6 is concerned it is more than enough. Especially as it has frozen solid and shows no sign of moving on but isn't thick enough to prevent her friends coming to her party.

Me and my big mouth. This is the first snow this early for 17 years. It never used to snow that much here. We've been here now for 25 years and only for the last few years has it snowed with much significance. I've now bought us all skiwear to cope with the annual onslaught of the white stuff, we've been snowed in at least once each winter for the past two years and the 4x4 we bought seems wholly justified.

We did our annual trip to St Fagans Museum of Welsh Life near Cardiff on Sunday for a present swap and lunch with B's Mum, sister L and her partner JB. It always rains. This year there was snow on the ground and it was picturesque in a Victorian Christmas card fashion. Of course I didn't take my camera because I'm so used to running from house to house in the rain that there's never been chance to take pictures. It was cold but it was lovely which is an apt description for our current state of weather: Cold but lovely.

Now you know I said it will never snow on MY birthday...