The view on Thursday morning from the top of the Tobacco Factory was magic, with the Clifton Suspension Bridge, below, hanging like a frosted "cat's cradle" over the Avon Gorge.

The supermarket car park below me had turned into a winter wonderland for the kids in the area.

I love the way the snow temporarily silences the city of cars and brings the cheerful noise of children's laughter in its place – I wish it lasted longer. Maybe I should curse not being able to take my tiny car out, but to me the snow is an opportunity for us to play and to dream.

I lived in Norway as a young teenager, where we used to take snow in winter for granted. There it enveloped the great little city of Oslo and its surroundings and transformed the way we did things. It was never seen as a problem but as part of normal life – and we made the most of it.

Even the boring occupation of food shopping became an adventure, with my mother taking her "spark", a sort of pushbike with runners, that we would shove uphill and ride and glide downhill.

Our Norwegian neighbours knew how to make the most of it – taking their winter break in a "hutte", a small timber house in the snow-covered mountains. Off road, we would not use 4x4s but a horse-driven sleigh to take our luggage to our destination for a very real Christmas, where it was only too easy to believe in Santa Claus.

So let's just accept that snow is a blessing and that if it changes our lives at school or work, or my takings at the bar go down, so be it. There are, of course, some individual horror stories, but the overall psychological benefit must be enormous. My office had great fun using our professional sign boards to race down Brandon Hill.

I remember when we were working on the rebuilding of the Grade I-listed Prior Park school some 20 years ago after it was badly damaged by fire, the main contractors were in despair at the artist craftsmen knocking up a sledge out of waste wood and breaking off early to take advantage of a snowfall. They were asked how they could take time off with such a tight programme, only to answer that tomorrow the snow may have disappeared, but tomorrow the building would still be there.

Maybe that is what is so special about snow – it can cause chaos but it can make a dreary place seem magical and turn a car-dominated street into a playground. Snow seems to bring the child out in us all, at least those of us who still have a child hidden in there.

Let's hope that with climate change we do not lose this very special pleasure, and let's stop grumbling about the buses or the grit – or lack of them – and grasp the opportunities when they are here, as they may be gone tomorrow.