In article ,
George Booth writes:
After a week of snow cover it just looks tired. I know it was freshened up a
couple of times but now it's that horrible mixture of frozen snow which has
been through several freeze-thaw cycles and solid ice which is an absolute
pain to walk on with our undulating pavements (the trees you see). With my
high c of g I find it a real challenge to walk along an ice covered pavement
on a hill where the pavement also has a slope towards the road. I noticed
somebody using a trekking pole the other day-good idea. Yesterday I broke
open one of the bags of rock salt which I have kept 'on ice' since the last
glaciation here in the early 1980's. This did the trick and allowed me to
use the curved blade snow clearing tool to create impressive mounds of snow
and ice at the edge of the drive. I still have one bag left - looks as if I
may be using it soon.

When I were a lad, most people would clear the snow from the pavement in
front of their house, so it never got the chance to be compacted into
ice, (You might get a little ice from mel****er running across the
cleared area, but that was usually only a minor problem.) Nobody seems
to do that any more.
--
John Hall "[It was] so steep that at intervals the street broke into steps,
like a person breaking into giggles or hiccups, and then resumed
its sober climb, until it had another fit of steps."
Ursula K Le Guin "The Beginning Place"