Sarah Todd: Snowman figure of fun brings some welcome comic relief

It's only a little line, but positive sayings about snow are hard to find. I'm still suffering from cabin fever now compounded by the children not getting back to school after the holidays because of the weather – so anything remotely upbeat is being clung on to.

These eight words relate to the fact that a continuous covering of snow delays the blossoming of fruit trees until the season of killing frosts is over. Such heavy snowfall also prevents the alternate thawing and freezing which can destroy wheat and other winter grains.

There's probably another old proverb warning that those who boast about their haylofts come unstuck. I smugly described the new installation in our shed which at that time seemed full enough to see us through winter. Now that the grass has been clothed in its thick white blanket for so long, these rations are fast disappearing. As soon as there's any kind of thaw we'll have to be out with the cheque book to buy some more hay.

Talking of cheque books, there's something sad about their near-demise in 2009. So many places now only accept the plastic payment of credit cards. It seems like yesterday that my first cheque book arrived. Cheques played a large part in farming life. I can remember going to market before being old enough to start school and scurrying around by the bank to get cheques paid in.

A snippet caught my eye in a piece about a huge market in Islington, London. It was opened in 1855 and 25,000 sheep were sold a week, along with 5,000 cattle, plus calves and pigs. There were two taverns on the north side, public houses at each corner and – wait for it – "twelve banking houses".

Anybody visiting could be forgiven for thinking we've spent too long in a public house. The children have been sorting through carrots to find funny-shaped ones, bringing back memories of Esther Rantzen and That's Life. Well, what do you do when they've done every jigsaw and played every game? In fact, playing with strange-shaped vegetables should perhaps be available on prescription as a winter gloom tonic. It was difficult to tell the children off without giggling as they unveiled the alterations they'd made to the snowman. With additions raided from the kitchen cupboards, whisks, sieves and a potato masher, eventually he turned into something that wouldn't look out of place in an episode of Doctor Who. A closer look reveals a carrot hand making a very good impression of a Harvey Smith-style salute. They're pleading innocence, although the daughter alleges she's "seen mummy" do something similar...