CREATIVE WRITING

As promised in the "Weather Forecast" thread, here is my earliest memory of snow. The earlies one I really remember. Maybe because there was so much snow there. Or...maybe it wasn't like this at all?

The living room is comfortable and warm. It's still winter, after all. Around the time of Fastnacht, if I remember correctly. And Fastnacht was late that year. 1992, I think, although there may be a difference there. I had other things on my mind than looking at the calendar.
Mama and Papa are going to shop for some groceries, we need them before dinner. Only to the small store in our village, so they won't be long. We could go with them, my sister and me, but we don't. We are watching TV, Michel aus Lönneberga. We both love Astrid Lindgren, and although we know every episode already, we want to keep watching. It's not a problem. They won't be gone for long, and after all, my father's parents are just downstairs. The worst that could happen is that they give us too many sweets. We are their only grandchildren, after all.
We also are not allowed to go out so much, as we both contracted a conjunctivitis (Bindehautentzündung).
Mama and Papa leave, we can hear their car. It’s the silver car, still, the one they bought when I was born, because they needed a bigger one. We continue to watch TV, without noticing anything. Then the bell rings. It’s Oma. She always rings the bell, or knocks. She doesn’t want to intrude. Although it’s her house. Hers and Opa’s. He also always rings it.
She tells us to look out of the window, because “it snows”. TV is now far less fascinating than a minute ago. Both Verena and I love snow. And here it is. Lots of snow. So much, in fact, that within minutes, you can watch how everything is covered in snow. The ground is white, as are the trees. You cannot even look very far, even the next street is hidden beyond all these flakes.
Maybe this is just my memory failing me, but I cannot recall having waited for it, so probably no weather report told us beforehand that it would snow.
When my parents come back, they tell us that the cashier suggested they waited to go home, because the cars were covered so thickly that she feared they wouldn’t be able to get home. But they did leave, coming home to us and putting the car in the garage. And that was the right decision, for the heavy snowfalls didn’t stop soon, as the cashier had thought. They continued all through the afternoon, and through the night.
The next day, Verena, me and Tülin, my sister’s best friend from Kindergarten (this was the winter before she started school, I think) went sleigh-driving through the village. There’s enough slopes in our village, not to say it’s built on one giant slope.
It still snowed, and I remember exactly how we are driving down the Buchenstraße. Wearing sunglasses to protect our eyes against the light and the snow.
It didn’t stop snowing.
And we wanted to build an igloo. Papa did not agree. He was of the opinion that there was enough snow to build more than a small igloo. We deserved a castle of our own. And he himself became very involved with building it. Not to say, we were helping to pile snow into a square box and he stacked them up to create the shape of a castle, complete with a tower on one side.
It never was finished. I don’t know why. Not because we were lacking snow, definitely.

And whenever I watch the photos were my sister and me are balancing on top of the walls of the snow castle, as high as we are, I remember sitting in the living room and hearing my grandmother say that “we should look outside”.