Covid helps us appreciate the simple things..
IT was a glorious day yesterday. I took a walk. There was a light breeze. I saw a butterfly, it was a very energetic cabbage white.
It flew some distance. By watching the butterfly I said to myself how thankful I am to be alive and to be able to savour nature and to try to get a rhythm to my life.
If my illness and this cursed pandemic has done anything, it has deepened my appreciation of these things.
Suddenly the colours are brighter and there is a lightness to my step.
But it doesn’t for one moment mean I have forgotten those in hospital living under Covid restrictions and with no visitors.
Having missed a week with my column, I wish to announce the delight in our household with Ivana Bacik’s win in Dublin Bay South.
The Labour Party have made a long and honourable contribution to Irish political life and I often think Brendan Howlin’s role as minister from 2011 to 2016 is under-appreciated.
He and Michael Noonan made a formidable team. Would one place Pascal Donohoe and Michael Mcgrath in the same league?
Perhaps not, but they have yet to be truly tested because it is when this government starts to rebuild both our society and our economy that their contribution will be judged.
That will require teamwork – Fine Gael and Fianna Fail working together for the betterment of the nation.
What then the difference between them? Will Fianna Fail be absorbed or just disappear as the result of the by-election suggests? Frankly their chances were hopeless. No wonder the likes of Barry Cowen are jumping up and down and demanding the leadership provide an explanation for this and the result of the general election.
In a strange way, the Taoiseach seems semidetached from all this with his position as head of government for the moment secure.
He has done a reasonable job and his relatively conservative approach to the pandemic may end up placing us in a safer place.
And what of the Blue Shirts? If the Tanaiste really wanted to retain the seat he would have made his peace with Kate O’connell, but I’m sure his ego got in the way.
So even throwing the ministerial kitchen sink behind “posh” legal eagle James Geoghegan couldn’t get him over the line.
But back to where I started with that cabbage white – the importance of nature. As America suffers a crucifying heatwave and Germany is lashed by floods, isn’t our temperate climate so benign?
Still not one of us will escape the effect of climate change, so this week I was delighted to see Bord na Mona – previously renowned for plundering our bogs – embarking on the process of transforming itself into a green energy company and an incubator of new jobs that will be truly green.
The future must be green.