Private comments are welcome. Thanks for reading.
The snow had been falling heavily for a few hours, and was over a foot thick, and it was getting deeper. All the roads were virtually impassable, and there were calls on the radio for people to stay indoors and not go out as Emergency services would not be able to get to you. There was a risk to life if you ventured outdoors. My husband Steve had phoned, it seemed it was even worse where they were at the powerplant, and he said that he wasn't coming home, not even going to try. There were a few beds at work still left over from Lockdown, and he would use one of them and wait until the roads were passable. There was chocolate and crisps in the vending machines, there was food in the canteen fridges that he could heat up, he wouldn't starve.
Our son Davie had been trying to keep our driveway and paths clear, but it was an impossible task. I opened the front door and called to him.
"Leave it Davie, come on in, you must be frozen."
He came in, stamping his feet outside to try and get the packed snow off his boots, before pulling them off to leave in the porch.
"Bloody hell Davie you are shivering. I am going to put the electric blanket on, we need to get you warm again." I rushed up to my room and put on my electric blanket, grabbed his towelling robe, and went back down.
"Half these clothes are wet and all of them are icy cold Davie. Come on, get them off and get this robe on."
"Mum, no."
"Davie yes. You'll catch your death. Now my electric blanket is on, once you get out of these cold clothes and into my bed, you will soon warm up."
I started pulling his clothes off him and when he was down to his underpants I put the robe round him, "and them pants too, come on, you need to get warm."
He turned away from me and pulled his pants down and added them to the pile of wet and icy clothes. I picked the lot up and took them through and put them by the washing machine to deal with later.
I followed Davie upstairs and stripped to my bra and pants and got into bed with him and put my arms around him.
"Come on, my body warmth will help too. You need to snuggle up close to me, you were out there too long. It was a good effort, what you were doing, but it was too cold baby."
His skin was so cold on mine, it was making me shiver. Hopefully the electric blanket would soon get some warmth back into him. I wrapped my arms and legs around him as much as I could and squeezed."
"Ow mum." He squealed
"What, what is the matter, what?" I asked.
"Something on your bra just stabbed me mum."
That was easily solved, probably one of the wires. I unwrapped myself from him, undid the bra and took it off, dropping it on the floor by the bed, I wrapped myself round him again, my body warmth and the electric blanket would do the trick. At least he had stopped shivering.
There was a sudden silence, the power had gone out. Oh, there went the electric blanket. I knew that pretty soon we would be getting cold.
"Davie, if you need to go pee, go now, because very soon we are going to get cold and the only warm place is going to be in the bed, and I won't want to disturb the quilt and let out any warmth."
"I'm okay mum, too cold to pee."
I wrapped as much of me around him as I could, my arms around him and folded onto his chest, my breats pushing into his back and my legs wrapped around him. Under different circumstances this could have felt very different. I was aware, for the first time, just how well built my son was. He had muscles, oh boy did he ever.
"Can I lay on my back mum, on my side is uncomfortable?"