Ian McMillan: I wish the snow would go, if you get my drift

A single snowflake meandered dreamily down in front of me like a white feather from a passing bird. It looked amazing. Then another snowflake joined it, then another, coming more and more quickly. It was as though my glasses had got dandruff; I looked up and the snow was tumbling from the sky, through the orange streetlights and I thought: "I'm lucky to be seeing this. I'm walking through the snow early in the morning at the start of a new year and I'll try and remember this moment for a long time."

And now look at me trudging. I'm unshaven, because in the snow nobody wants to look at your chin; we're all too busy looking at the floor to make sure we don't slip. I'm squinting as I walk because the landscape is completely white and I think I'm getting snow blindness. It's like walking through a pint of full-cream milk.

Icicles like daggers are hanging down from window ledges and the first time I saw them, icy stalactites pointing to the floor from my

mother-in-law's porch, I took a photograph.

Now I just wish they'd go away. A bus has broken down at the roundabout and the passengers are wiping the windows with their sleeves. Cars are inching down the road. A bird hops listlessly. A baby cries but nobody tries to comfort it.

Funny, isn't it, how a few days of snow can turn us all inwards? When it first came, I had that thrill that comes from the routine world being turned a little upside down; the idea of schedules being ripped up or at least battered until they were slightly bent made an ordinary day seem extraordinary.

On the Tuesday, I had nothing to do but sit and pretend to write and watch the snow coming down, flakes as big as cherry scones or squash balls. I watched the news and it was all about the snow. I listened to the radio and it was all about the snow. I knew that on the Wednesday I had to go to London and I had that odd feeling of disappointment when I rang the people I was working with down there and they told me that although it was cold, they'd had no snow.

"Well, it's a foot deep here!" I said, exaggerating only slightly, and I could tell they only half-believed me. Heavy snow is like a sore back: nobody really understands how bad it is unless they've got it themselves.

I got up very early on the Wednesday morning; outside, our suburban street looked like surface of the Moon. I rang for a taxi and there was no answer. It felt like the world had ended while I was asleep. I made a cup of tea and clutched the cup like a primitive bloke in a cave.

Eventually I got a taxi, I slithered through the snow to Doncaster station and I got to London, where there was only a slight amount of snow. As I left to come back, the snow was coming down hard and I felt, somehow, intrepid. I felt like an explorer even though I was only sitting on a train drinking coffee and reading a book. I got home and my wife said: "You made it, then!" We ate a celebratory meat-and-tatie pie with mushy peas.

And since then, nothing has changed. I look out of the window and try to convince myself that the snow has gone a little tiny bit, even though I really know it hasn't. On television they're talking about the snow all the time and to be honest they're running out of things to show. They show coppers pushing cars. They show piles of grit getting smaller. They show people in trunks jumping into icy water with rictus grins. Then, with a chuckle in their voice, they show kids sledging and chucking snowballs at the camera. They even rang me up to do a poem about it, and filmed me spouting in my back garden!

Now, though, I really wish it would go. I wish the world would turn multicoloured again. I wish I didn't have to put three pairs of socks on and spend five minutes lacing my boots up before I go out. I know I shouldn't wish my life away but, hey, wouldn't it be nice it it was summer? Wouldn't it be nice to wear shorts and a sunhat?

Anyway, time to get my boots on and go and chop some sticks! See you on the other side of the drift...