Winter Essentials

Forget snow-shovels. When it comes to getting rid of frozen precipitation, my weapon of choice is the ice scraper.

Now don't get me wrong: I'm not talking about those pathetic little moulded plastic de-icers that you keep in the glove compartment of your car. Oh, no. I'm talking about a precision engineered tool with a three-foot steel core shaft and a flat, sharpened steel blade that will cut through any car-compressed or simply neglect-compacted ice sheets that are foolish enough to build up on your drive.

An ice scraper may not be as crudely efficient as my John Deere wishlist-topper, the snow blower, but there's nothing as satisfying as slicing through a bank of thick ice using nothing more environmentally damaging than Reese's-fuelled manpower.

Common or garden-centre snow blower

Given the challenges of lots of snow and a lack of both fences and pavements (and therefore kerbs), another must-have winter product is the driveway marker. These brightly-coloured four-foot poles are stuck into the ground when the first flurries fall to prevent cars inadvertently driving across your garden, which is, after all, at the same height as the adjacent road, especially when thick snow blurs the boundaries between the two.

Because there are ditches along both sides of many roads and these are quickly obscured by the twin forces of snow and snow ploughs, driveway markers have the added advantage that they ensure you approach your garage along your drive rather than having to abandon your Hummer/SUV/4x4 (delete where appropriate) in the aforementioned ditch.