Here is the latest of our student blogs by Richard Mason.

Richard Mason is currently studying Journalism at Glasgow Clyde College, is a former thespian and an aspiring documentary film maker.

 

I’m dreaming of a white Christmas, a snow covered landscape full of possibilities however briefly.

As a seasoned skier, snow always gives me a feeling of joy and excitement, an opportunity to enjoy landscapes I know with a new challenge.

Last year it snowed twice in Glasgow and on both occasions I jumped into my ski boots and went over the road to Queens Park where I saw families sledging; students from Shawlands Academy laughing, having snowball fights; and dogs struggling to understand why the grass is so fluffy.

Maybe it’s the rarity of it or maybe there’s something about snow that excites the child in us all.

The activities we take part in when there is snow on the ground don’t take place in any other conditions. You wouldn’t get very far with your sledge in June and a mud ball fight doesn’t conjure up the laughter and thrill of its winter counterpart.

The most wonderful thing about snow, however, is the silence it brings.

An opportunity to get away from all the distracting sounds of the city and be alone with your own thoughts is something you hardly ever get living in Glasgow or any other city in the UK.

In Britain we unfortunately bear the brunt of the Gulf Stream, a warm current of air that circulates from the Gulf coast in the Americas.

This means that we have an unpredictable and changeable climate making snow difficult to keep around for most of the country.

Historically we settled in the warmest and most agreeable climates meaning our greater population areas don’t have the highest possibility for a white Christmas.

But going further North, the Cairngorms is the snowiest place in the UK. The area has an average of 76 days of snow each year.

So perhaps our fleeting relationship with snow in Glasgow is a positive. We have very few problems with travel in the deep winter months and when the snow does eventually come, we relish it.

A white Christmas does not seem likely this year. With temperatures hitting as high as 16C in parts of the UK this December and daffodils blooming in London and other spring flowers as far North as Ayrshire, snow seems like a distant memory.

Maybe I read too many Calvin and Hobbes comic strips when I was young, maybe I’ve collected some of the imaginative youngsters passion for the white stuff: “If I was in charge we’d never see grass between October and May” remarked Calvin in one of the more memorable strips before performing a snow dance.

There’s something magical about the way snow blankets an entire landscape and changes everything you see outside your window.

The way snow brings people together in a society of constant vigilance to the dangers of the world, it lets us forget about all the human problems we have and just experience nature.

Although snow this Christmas seems as likely as Eddie the Eagle winning gold, I’m ever hopeful and while I’ve seen a lot of snow from all my time skiing, there’s nothing quite like watching it fall outside your own window, clutching a hot chocolate with enough marshmallows to stuff a chubby bunny and wrapped up in four blankets.

It is enough to make the hardest of humbugs melt.