Persistent and heavy falls of frogs

Irish whinging about the weather can get on your nerves. But my God the 2017-18  winter deserves all the whinging it gets. It’s toying with us, pretending to stop just long enough to get us to put away our thermal long johns, then whipping back into vicious life. Here’s how I comfort myself as I stand at a Dublin bus-stop with every piece of exposed flesh flayed by horizontal sleet.

Soft day, mind you.

First I remember how things were just a short generation ago, when central heating was a novelty in Ireland. For the four months of winter, life shrank down to the semi-circle around the fire. Many’s the seat of a pair of trousers I singed painfully in the quest for a biteen of heat. Ochón

Then I think back further. Imagine life in the Viking town around Wood Quay in Dublin, where the only heat would come from a fire without a chimney in the centre of a mud-and-wattle hut. Then just think what persistent Irish February rain could do to a mud-and-wattle hut.

“What didn’t kill them made them  stronger”? I’m sure Irish Februarys killed more Vikings than Brian Ború. So I feel thankful (and  hope that bloody bus comes soon).

rain locust blood boils footandmouth darkness.

My real heroes at this time of the year, though, are Irish Met Office forecasters.  Your heart has to go out to them. They have the most thankless task you could imagine, so they keep trying to soften the message:

“Scattered showers of locusts spreading from the West in the morning, turning to fiery hail by the afternoon and becoming persistent overnight. But it’ll be mostly dry on Friday!”

Weather in Dublin, February 1 -9, 2018

 

12 thoughts on “Persistent and heavy falls of frogs”

  1. That image of you whipped by the freezing wind at the bus stop is intense. I take my Southern California weather for granted, despite brush fires, earthquakes, etc.

  2. Loved your weather comments. All the more humorous as we are experiencing a heat wave in Queensland, Australia. Today a scorching 35 degrees! You can fry eggs on the pavement.

  3. Ay, John, it comes thru Texas first, I am afraid. We have the saying that if you don’t like the weather just now, wait a couple of hours and it will change . ha.

  4. Great blog John, I can well picture you standing at the bus stop, freezing and passing the time. Daily ritual I imagine, but thanks so much for such a witty blog.
    Like Lauren Young, I’m also in Queensland in the middle of the heat wave. I thank heavens for air conditioning and pray that the electricity grid copes with the number that are on at the moment (except for those poor areas that were cut off following Sunday nights storm).

  5. How mollycoddled we all are by comparison these days. I remember walking to school in Montreal when I was eight, in minus degrees snow blizzards ,with only my eyes exposed to the elements. Nowadays schools would be closed!
    You depict a very humorous image of yourself in front of that fire John.

    1. Janice, I’m from upstate New York, and your story is familiar. I vividly remember walking down the center of a major street in Albany, NY, with my father one morning. There were no vehicles moving; the wide street was deserted. We were walking to Mass, Dad and I.

      I, too, love the image of John and his singed pants before the fire!

  6. Ouchón, Mr G … am thinking our whinging about the weather … especially the later spring stuff around the world … must be a joke from God himself me thinks … just to prove who really is in charge! Good thing to remember is that it won’t last forever, and that by far, we do have it easier to deal with all than those who came before us ….even with the singeing of the pants!

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