Much excitement in the neighbourhood today as chilly winds from the south bear the unmistakable damp kiss that betokens snow. While the mercury (or the weather app, let’s be honest) shows a rather lovely 11 degrees and sunshine all day, that breeze seems to suck the warmth from everything and we’re heavily bundled up and feeding the fire like stokers in the Titanic’s boiler room.

When I was a child in Zimbabwe, one of the questions we’d ask when getting to know each other was, “have you seen snow?” This ranked alongside such similar probing inquiries as “where do you live?” and “what does your dad do?”

It was an important point of distinction: the country is land-locked and although at high altitude and capable of zero-degree winter mornings, does not experience snow. So those who had witnessed the phenomenon had travelled into the outside world – beyond the beachless borders, the cultural and economic sanctions, and the ‘bush war’ that dominated life for many years.

But we knew all about snow from the books we read and Christmas cards that showed snowy scenes and things like holly and robins. We saw it in movies and our black-and-white TVs, and so understood it to be mystical and fun and joyous.

I was 18 when I first experienced snow in the flesh – well, on the flesh. We were on holiday: my father, squeezing our Z$ 300-a-year travel allowance until it screamed, borrowed a chalet in Chamonix from a business associate. Unfortunately our allowance didn’t stretch to hiring ski paraphernalia, so we spent our time wandering about in our inadequately-insulated outfits or forcing my sister – the only one of us who spoke French – to ask the prices of things in the shops.

Even so, we did have a go at building a snowman and pelting each other with snowballs – briefly, before it dawned on us that snow was freezing cold and caused unexpectedly painful hands, especially when they started to thaw out again.

Further downsides of snow became amply apparent over twenty-odd years in London. Of course there was always that feeling of wonder at the rare phenomenon of large, soft flakes floating down – even if they compelled us to walk to work due to the total freak-out of the transport system.

But in a nation of dog-lovers, snow’s beauty is soon besmirched – as Mr Zappa wisely counselled, “don’t eat the yellow snow” – and traffic soon turns that lovely virginal blanket into ridges of filthy slush and treacherous packed ice.

It was similar in New York and Chicago, when work required winter-time travel. Turning a corner on a Chicago street and finding a four-metre-high bank of snow, deposited there to thaw over the months, makes your perception of the temperature plummet noticeably. And wearing all those coats, scarves, gloves and beanies render every entrance and exit at every building a tedious ritual of robing, disrobing, rerobing and so on. It gets old really fast.

Moving on a couple of years, a whole new aspect of snow’s treachery was revealed in Austria on a skiing holiday with Daniela and the boys. They were proficient; I was not. While they cheerfully buggered off to swoop and swerve at speed across picturesque black runs, I was entrusted to the tender care of Karl, an octogenarian instructor who appeared to have learnt his chops as one of those ski troopers of the Third Reich.

Karl began by explaining the all-important technique for stopping – in my nightmares, his cracked tones yell “snnoowwplooough!” as I careen out of control toward the abyss. He didn’t really have a gift for pedagogy – it’s not much use to shout “nnooooo!” as yet again my skis take off without warning, bearing me through one of those orange plastic fences in front of the crowd at the ski-lift. Yes, Karl, I know this isn’t the desired sequence of events, so telling me so in the middle of it achieves nothing.

On the ninth day of our stay, something clicked (not my knees) and it all began to work: the mild undulations of the nursery slopes did not induce falling over, and halting without deploying the arse as a brake became possible. It may have been the generous shots of schnapps Karl and I had glugged out of desperation before hitting the slopes, I don’t know – because we left the next day.

So now, hearing excited talk about going ‘up to the snow’ as they say here, I’m a little unenthused. Not having experienced the realities of the stuff with the pure wonderment of childhood, snow to me is so much better when you observe it from indoors – centrally-heated indoors if possible.