The Big Smelt ...

So it seems that the weather forecasters got it wrong, but then this is Ireland and they seem to get a lot of things wrong and then everyone tries to blame someone, and of course who should be to blame according to the people well yes naturally the government. It is the transport ministers fault that there was an unprecedented amount of snow in Ireland and especially Dublin, which brought the city to a grinding halt and created "commuter caos" (the press loves that one).

The forecasters were obviously following accuweather.com thinking they would get an accurate prediction, I have been following the weather there and it has been "pretty" accurate but not 100%, it predicted snow for Saturday, Sunday & Monday. Instead the snow came on Friday, and so not to get caught up in the "commuter chaos" that I had on Wednesday, I left work about an hour earlier, on my way I stopped at the grocery store to pick up the normal weekly groceries, I thought that at least if the predictions were right, I wouldn't have to go out on Saturday. The store was full of shoppers, busy but not hectic, I got everything I needed included lots of fresh veggies to make a big pot of soup.

After I picked up Em from the crèche (oh yes in case I forgot to mention, the schools were supposed to go back on Thursday 7th, but the Education Minister closed them because of the "Big Freeze", until the 14th, but has now reopened them on the 12th because of the "Big Smelt"), anyway we headed home and just in time because later that evening it started snowing again. We had lots of snow on Friday night and then Saturday, the roads were just a mess, luckily we did not have to go out and only took a walk to the shop to save us from getting Cabin Fever, it is a short walk to the shops but took us long due to snow ball fights and general messing.

Then Saturday night it snowed again, we woke on Sunday morning to at least 10 cm's of fresh snow on top of what was already there, we needed to get out though and headed off to Dundrum, by this time which was about 1 o'clock the snow had started to melt, and it has continued to melt most of today as well, which I am sure gave everyone a sigh of relief. Especially the government who will be hauled over the coals by the opposition parties at the next parliamentary meeting.

The poor minister of Transport has been criticised for being on holiday while the snow fell and leaving the transport system in chaos, now the problem with these ministers being interview on TV is they do not think before opening their mouths, the minister of transport jumped to his own defence by saying: "that there is nothing he can do, if it going to snow it is going to snow" instead of saying that "everything was under control and he had his "people" looking after it", I mean the man is entitled to his holiday and why must he rush back if it snows, he has people working for him to look after things when there is a crisis ... yea right they were probably stuck in the snow.

Okay, so let's see what the government have been blamed for in the last 6 months, the floods across Ireland, the Snow, the Banking crisis ( I would agree with that one), let’s make a list and see what else we can blame them for.
Oh yes I wanted to say that when I was doing my weekly grocery shop on Saturday there were people buying up trolley loads of bricketts for the fire, the Salt was sold out, but a shipment of gritting salt arrive in Cork this morning, why they were out of Table salt only they know. The Polish girl that works with me, laughed she said snow this isn't snow come to Poland and Marcella at the crèche who is from the Czech republic said the same thing, she said she went to do grocery shopping on Saturday and the shelves were empty, people went on a panic buying spree, the shops ran out of eggs, milk, all the basics, bottled water you name it, it was gone. Kind of reminds me when we all stocked up on Candles and tinned food in South Africa, can't even remember why that was, oh yes it happened here in Ireland as well I think that was just after 9/11.

I just read an interesting article on the Snow Crisis, read it here: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2010/0109/1224261978140.html

You really do appreciate everything you have when you hear about people who’s pipes have burst because of the freeze, running out of oil for the heaters and not being able to get a delivery, people stuck in their cars for 11 hours or more, and here I was complaining about a 3 hour journey home.

Let’s hope it is all over now and we can get back to some kind of normality.