Brrrrh!

Here, in Ireland, we are in a unique situation. We are approximately on the same latitude as Moscow and Montreal, but we have a very moderate climate. We are protected from the extremes of European temperatures by our fringe location in the Atlantic, and we are, normally, protected from the Arctic blasts by the Gulf Stream and the temperate weather fronts which follow it across the Atlantic; nor do we ever have to worry about hurricanes, tornados, or volcanic eruptions. In compensation we accept that we can never count on settled weather: winter and summer often compete, by wearing each other's clothes. Suddenly that all changed a few days ago.
The Arctic suddenly decided to assert itself and we have lived with temperatures, which seem as cold as I remember in Montreal, and winds which made the cold a cruel companion out-of-doors. There were pictures on television of a large container ship about one hundred miles off our southern coast which had forty foot containers strewn across its decks like matchboxes.