Brian Viner: Sledging by the pig farm beats going to school

The view from the country

Snow in the country is a different proposition from snow in the city. I remember an epic snowfall in London in February 1991, and fun-loving hordes flocking to Hampstead Heath, where the property market went downhill fast in the form of estate agents' boards being used as makeshift sledges. Ironically, though, not even a chap on a zippy Folkard & Hayward sign could compete with a fellow on an upturned Zimmer frame. In this country, sledging is all about improvisation.

Here in rural Herefordshire, where people are outnumbered by sheep, sledging runs are sparsely populated even after a dramatic dump of snow like the one we've just had. This means that you probably won't suffer the indignity of sitting back on your custom-built toboggan while a man on a frying-pan goes whizzing past you, but sometimes a paucity of people means a paucity of fun.

Happily, that wasn't the case for my children yesterday. They hauled their sledges across the fields at 2pm, and returned shortly before dark, having found what they described as a black slope next to the pig farm.

With them were three schoolfriends, whose parents, like us, had been texted at 7am with the ominous message that the school, 15 miles from us in Hereford, would be operating its Extreme Weather Policy. "Do NOT attempt to send your child into school if it is going to put you or your family at risk," the message continued, so we decided to keep the three of them at home, even though the journey down the A49 could have been undertaken without too much chance of ending up like Captain Oates. Indeed, the friends who came were delivered by their parents, in some cases, from further afield than the school. But then we're not all so crusty and middle-aged that we can't remember how much more fun it is to sit on a sledge than to sit through double chemistry.

Another few days of Extreme Weather Policy, however, and we might start to feel less indulgent. After all, they'd only just gone back to school after the Christmas holidays, which coincidentally are exactly as long as the parental tether. Bring on the thaw.