You have to love this country.

Last November [a mere few weeks ago] the country was washed out with floods.  Hundreds of thousands of acres were awash, and God knows how many homes were destroyed.  From Dublin, through Kildare, right down the Shannon and Cork was nothing but water.  Night after night, all we saw on the news was images of people being boated from their drowned homes.

The country ground to a standstill.

Then came The Freeze.

We had a few snow flurries, and the roads froze.  Cars, buses, taxis and trains slithered to a halt.  No one had any salt for the roads so fuck all was done.  I don’t know why they couldn’t use grit?  There were dozens of quarries offering the stuff for nothing, but the councils insisted on salt for some reason.  Grit did its job perfectly up to a few years ago, but apparently salt is in fashion so that was the way we were told we had to go.  The government ordered tons of salt, but because of international demand, there wasn’t any.

The country ground to a standstill.

Then came the thaw.

Temperatures have [relatively] soared in the last couple of days, and the only place you’ll find ice now is in Tracey’s vodka down in the pub.  The snow has gone, and the roads have cleared.  The tens of thousands of tons of salt have arrived now that we don’t want the stuff.

Guess what?

We are out of water.

The country that was up to its neck in floods a few short weeks ago is rationing water. Fucking hell!  They reckon it will be weeks before reservoirs are up to safe levels.  Swathes of our capitol city have been cut off and people are collecting their supplies in buckets from tankers.  Companies, schools and shops have had to shut because they are dry.  It is truly a case of “water, water, everywhere, but not a drop to drink”. People are buying bottled water to top up their cisterns. 

Nobody can afford to wash.

Truly, this country stinks.