This is the state of the alley between my house and Sainsbury’s supermarket:

In a word, eek. Getting across this is like crossing a very bad, lumpy ice rink. It is snow-that-was-just-starting-to-melt-and-suddenly-refroze, which I don’t think there’s a word for. I have found a nice Wikipedia article on different types of snow, but disappointingly the type pictured above seems only to fit under the term ‘ice’. I was really hoping it would called something exciting.

Next time I make it across the rink to the supermarket I am considering making an extra purchase of a large bag of economy salt, and gritting myself a little path down the middle.