As a child, I wondered why our Christmas trees were covered in snow. We were cooking at 35°C, stuffing our mouths with ice-cream. And why did Santa have a fur coat? We had on the least we could get away with. I remember watching Hollywood Christmas films: on the night of 24 December it started to snow. Young children and parents played outside in long colourful scarves and huge jackets. The whole family laughed as they built snowmen: buttons for eyes, carrots for noses. It was magical and perfect; snow was so much fun.

Even in the excitement of holidays and the happiness of sun-drenched swimming pools, I longed for snow. I spent 24 years living in a hot South American city wanting it to snow: summer or winter, I didn't mind. When my dream finally came true a couple of years ago, it was amazing to see my sugar-iced neighbourhood after 90 years without snow. On tv. I was on the other side of the world, in sunny, summery London.

I finally saw my own snow four weeks ago. While everyone else was complaining about tube and bus journeys being cancelled, I was marvelling at white-coated mailboxes, stalactites hanging from lamp-posts and pigeons slipping on ice. And - oh yes - how I enjoyed it! It was everything I had imagined - except for wet clothes, numb hands and a red, frozen nose. And it never crossed my mind that I was going to feel I was ruining the perfect whiteness of the snow when I walked on it. I felt like a curious finger finding its way into a cream-covered cake, and leaving a visible, reproachable mark.

Building snowmen, snowball-fighting, making snow-angels. City snow gave all of us hard-working, serious, adults an unmissable chance to behave like children. I'm not into cold weather, but I can't wait for next winter in London - to see this otherwise grown-up city in a playful mood that suits it so delightfully.

END

(c) Gabriela Scavuzzo 6 March 2009

Gabriela Scavuzzo is a writer living in London. She is Fringe Report's Spanish-English translator

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