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I’m writing this column at the Farm Centre on Tuesday morning. It’s a grand, bright morning and although it is cold, it’s nothing like as cold as yesterday.
Maybe the warm air from the south is fighting back and will keep the snow away.
Looking out my window it’s hard to believe we’ve been warned to expect up to 6cm of snow this evening.
Our youngest, Richard, is in college in Dublin and most Monday nights we visit a supermarket to stock up on groceries for the week.
The supermarket is usually almost empty, but not last night. It was like Christmas Eve.
The car park was full and the shelves for bread and milk were empty.
People were stocking up on bottled water, meat, vegetables and toilet roll – I kid you not.
As I’ve said before, snow holds no fascination for me. I hate the stuff.
Everyone is talking about the snow in 1982 and I well remember it.
I was studying in Dublin and was delighted to get the last bus home to Arklow the evening it started to snow.
A big strong bus, sure it would have no problem with a bit of snow.
We made our way slowly out of Dublin, through the suburbs and onto the N11. The snowflakes were huge and it was like as if a couple of giants were having a pillow fight in the sky high above us.
By the time we got to Ashford the road was barely visible and when we reached Rathnew the sign posts and junctions had been obliterated.
The bus driver wouldn’t go any further and I was still 25 miles from home. These were pre-mobile phone days, so making a call home took ages.
Eventually contact was made with cousins of ours and they came on the tractor to rescue me. It was several days before the roads were opened and traffic could get going again.
When I was about nine I remember the whole family getting caught in a blizzard. There are three roads that you can take to our family home in Wicklow.
Two of them involve negotiating stiff, little hills. That night the car refused to go up the Ballycoog hill, so we changed tack and tried going home via the Cott hill.
That didn’t work either. So there was nothing for it but to try a big detour by Coates’s Bridge road and we made it.
You might wonder why that incident is so etched into my memory. Well, this was pre NCT days and the window wipers refused to budge.
So every few yards my mother and I had to reach out and clear the snow from the window screen. I will never forget it.
Anyway, if the snow is anything as bad as forecast, we are in for a rough couple of days.
So do take precautions when it comes to your health and safety. If you are feeding or checking livestock on an out-farm, let someone know when you expect to be back.
Make sure you have good grip on boots or wellies so as to help prevent slips and falls.
Most of all, be a good neighbour and keep an eye out for each other. With a bit of luck, this is the final sting in the tail of this winter.
Kathleen Daly from Carrickmacross, Co Monaghan, and Julia M Lucey from Gneeveguilla, Rathmore, Co Kerry.
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