It was great to come back to school last Monday and hear the constant sharing of so many ‘snow stories’. Everyone had funny pictures to share. Every garden shed was raided for something to slide down in the snow, plastic bags, plastic covers, tyre tubes, bags of straw, old pillows inside a plastic bag and so on. For many of our younger generation it was their first time seeing snow. Each year in our secondary school in Bantry we have four Spanish students on a TY exchange programme. Again they had never seen snow and they built igloos with Irish and Spanish flags on top. These were shared with their families and friends back home.

The national emergency response was so well co-ordinated and it was very professional. They did a great job and the effort was appreciated. Everyone agreed that the snow definitely stopped us in our tracks. This has been a good thing. We did things last week that we normally don’t do. There was also time for laughter and fun. There was less time spent on mobile phones and technology. There was time to talk and be creative.

We got a chance to be ourselves. We got a chance to look at life from a completely different angle. We have sometimes allowed our days become boring, stagnant and stale. We can drift into doing the same things over and over again. Every day is pure gift, full of opportunity, surprise and possibility. The snow made us realise this almost by accident. But the snow is gone now and we could slip back into our old ways.



As we move into these last few weeks of Lent, we could spend it well by appreciating each day as gift. We could spend less time on things that are insignificant and shallow. If we could then spend more time embracing opportunity, surprise, possibility and the blessings that we so often taken for granted, it will have been a really good day.