Some thoughts

• Snow is a damp clumpy substance that lies on top of harder ground. Shovels are good at moving such substances. Might it not be sensible to try moving snow with shovels rather than by shuffling over it with innumerable pairs of feet


• A garden spade has a gently curved bottom. This is excellent for many earth-related reasons, but when shovelling snow with a spade one swiftly discovers why the shovel also exists


• When shovelling snow with a spade, one must go back to go over the icy lines created at the edge of the curved bit of spade


• There is nobody so invisible as a man with a spade


• It takes about ten minutes to clear a square metre of snow. Shovelling slushy snow for forty minutes makes you sweat


• If you clear a nice path a foot wide through the car-park, most people will walk on the slushy snow around it