Snow Days by Elly Griffiths

It's been snowing here since before Christmas. Not much for some parts of the world, admittedly (I sent a picture of my kids sledging to a friend in Canada and she emailed back 'nice frost') but, for us on the south coast of England, it's a totally new experience.

Things I like about the snow:

1. The quiet. No cars, no school run, just that all-enveloping white blanket. Comforting and scary at the same time.
2. The kids playing outside all day in a huge feral gang. This is what childhood should be like (this attitude gets me into trouble at parent/teacher evenings)
3. Not having to shop.
4. The beautifying effect. Our garden is full of rusty toys and dead plants – under the snow it looks like a winter wonderland.

Things I don't like:

1. Worrying about my mum, who is housebound. Luckily she is just an hour's trek away and I've done this every day. Her first words to me: 'where are the mince pies?'
2. Being cold.
3. Having to wear hundreds of layers. Getting ready to go out is a major undertaking and earmuffs are not a good look on a forty-something woman.

I'm trying to write a book. It's the third in the Ruth Galloway series and is tentatively entitled The House at Sea's End (my publishers invariably don't like my titles). The trouble is, it's set in the spring and I keep wanting to make it snow...

My favourite snow scenes in books:

1. Lucy meeting Mr Tumnas in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Apparently C.S. Lewis suddenly had a vision of a faun in the snow, carrying parcels and an umbrella – this was the start of the whole Narnia series.
2. James Joyce The Dead
3. Lorna Doone "...the snow came on again, thick enough to blind a man..."
4. Any detective story where they are snowbound in a spooky old house but, especially, C J Sansom's Dissolution.
5. Any scene in Anna Karenina – I bet she never wore ear muffs.

Elly Griffiths' is the author of the Ruth Galloway novels which are set on the Norfolk Coast of England. The books take their inspiration from Elly's husband, who gave up a city job to train as an archaeologist, and her aunt who lives on the Norfolk coast and who filled her niece's head with the myths and legends of that area. Elly has two children and lives near Brighton. The Crossing Places, the first in the series, is just published in the USA, and has received extremely positive reviews from BookBrowse's members. Visit Elly online at ellygriffiths.co.uk