As most of you know, Bob and I arrived in Ireland July 1, 2009 to begin our missions work. Since then, Ireland has been breaking all sorts of "weather records". For instance, August and September were the two wettest months in 20 years. These large amounts of rain brought extreme flooding. Our city centre was flooded (see attached picture), along with many other city's.
Already, this winter has been the coldest winter in Ireland in over 50 years. On Sunday, January 10, 2010, we had 3 1/2 inches of snow in Mallow - the most snow to fall here in over 50 years. . .are you getting the picture??? It's been so cold that water pipes have frozen and burst all over the city. We were without water for three days. You never know how often you use water throughout the course of the day until you don't have it to use! We were able to get drinking water and "dirty" water (used to flush toilets), from our Landlady. She even picked us up on Sunday and took us to her house for brunch and then let us shower. I think maybe we just smelled so bad she felt she had no choice, hahahahaha.
At any rate, all is back to normal (for now). Except the temperatures that is. It's still very cold for Ireland. Thank God for fireplaces, lots of coal, wood and turf to burn. Keeps us nice and cozy on those extremely LONG winter nights.
I've attached a picture of our snow storm. I know it's not much by Ohio standards, but it was a huge deal here. Ireland has no snow tires, no snow plows, and very little salt for the roads. When it snows this much here, city's come to a complete stand still.
