When I saw the weather forecasts predicting SNOWMAGEDDON earlier this week I sighed. You see, where snow is concerned I am both a lover and a hater.

The child in me loves the snow. It brings back memories of snow days and hot chocolate, building snowmen and sledging in the park. Being the fully fledged southerner that I am, snow was rare in my native Bristol. To wake to even a light sprinkle of the white stuff would mean HUGE excitement.

Now though, I have to go to work. One of my sources of income is working on a breakfast radio show. This is fun. Massively so. But on snow days the fun is ever so slightly squeezed out by the stress of dealing with hundreds of school closures and the pressure to get it completely right. I’m a mum, so I know how important it is that other parents get the right information when they’re tuning in to see if their kid’s school is closed.

When you work as a presenter or a news reader, you don’t have the option to work from home if you’re snowed in. You have to make it in. End of. This often means a night in a hotel near the studios before a show, or getting up three hours early (1.30am) to dig your car out of the snow and push it out of a snowy carpark, before driving to work at 3 miles an hour. I’ve experienced both of these scenarios.

But, buried deep down, there’s a big snow lover in there. Mainly because of this:

Playing in the garden after a scary journey home that took more than three hours because of the snow. Seeing my husband safe through the door after his car came off the road in the snow. Watching my toddler experience the first snow she’ll remember, making snowballs and throwing them onto the roof with her dad to see them roll down and splat on the floor.

Making a snowwoman. A snowwoman my daughter has named Louise:

Sledging. Not on a fancy sledge (because we’re far too ill prepared to bother with one of those), but on a floral tray from Poundland:

I’m a snow lover AND a snow hater. What are you?