It snowed yesterday. Big fat flakes of the stuff swirling past the office window, soaking the shivering smokers and putting pretty white caps on the dustbins.

So, I reasoned, winter has arrived. And when I got home, I had a quick rummage in the kit cupboard, and equipped the car with, in addition to the usual scrapers and de-icer, several cans of self-heating coffee, a blizzard bag and a spade.

I think the spade may be overkill. I commute to work along some of the busiest stretches of motorway in the country and the chances of encountering an impassable snowdrift on the way to work are on the small side. Still, in the event that four feet of snow does suddenly materialise in the middle of the M42 . . . I have a spade.

 For similar reasons, I posess a folding snow shovel. This has seen frequent use . . . for making snowmen (just as no stately home is complete without a pair of stone lions guarding the driveway, no tent is complete without a pair of ice-tool-armed snowmen) and as an improvised cricket bat. (Top tip: Playing cricket with snowballs doesn’t work very well, although I *still* think that would have been a six had the ball not disintegrated when hit.) The one thing it has never been used for is its intended purpose, which is for making snowholes and digging people out of avalanches. 

There is, however, something pleasantly warm and fuzzy about knowing that if things did suddenly turn horribly gnarly, one is equipped to deal with the situation - not so much fearing what might happen, but secretly half-hoping that it will.

And if you should somehow manage to get avalanched in the middle of Spaghetti Junction, I have a spade.

Weeks Leave Taken: 2
Model Rail Layouts Designed: 1 (It will have climbers.)
Letterboxes Found: 63
Geocaches Found: 14

I clearly need to get out more. Except that I already did.
::o)