The Irish Independent's View: Make the most of this welcome weather – we don't see it too often

Irish Independent

11-07-2025

But now we can actually touch and even feel it.
Days like these should come with a national declaration to stop work and head for the beach, bar or wherever. Judicious idleness is the only effective antidote to the plague of busyness which can be too often found on our island.
It has long been recognised that sunlight is the best disinfectant, so there is nothing for it but to lash on the factor-50 and dive in. People do not notice if it is winter or summer when they are happy, Anton Chekhov wrote. The Russian literary great may be right.
There is no denying that there are more smiles to be seen on people's faces these cloudless days than you will find on a wet afternoon in darkest ­November. So for now, let us savour and wallow in our mini-heatwave.
We owe it to ourselves to let go of the stress and embrace the high-pressure zone that has settled over us.
Inuit people are reputed to have dozens of words for snow, and we have almost as many for our own, more common, form of precipitation.
Between the drizzle, scattered showers, mist, soft days and hard rain there are plenty of types of weather to put a dampener on most of the year. When it comes to basking in scorching temperatures, we are all too often left in the shade.
A time to chill can be therapeutic. You may be of a mind with American writer Ambrose Bierce, who joked: 'An abstainer – a weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure.'
Stay safe, but take the time to grab every precious moment
It's not about losing the run of ourselves, though. The Road Safety Authority and Water Safety Ireland have cautioned people to take due care.
The trick is to stay safe, but also take the time to grab every precious moment.
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French author Albert Camus saw the value of locking away the warmth in anticipation of inevitable rainy days.
'In the depths of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer,' he wrote.
Getting in our 10,000 steps and counting the calories in whatever we eat or drink can wait.
Taking it easy when the sky is radiant seems like the obvious thing to do. As they say, laziness is just the habit of resting before you get tired.
Buddhist philosopher Nhat Hanh suggested stripping everything back to its simplest form.
'Wherever we are, any time, we have the capacity to enjoy the sunshine, the presence of each other. We don't have to travel anywhere else to do so,' he said.
And when the sun shines on Ireland, where else would you wish to be? So, whatever form of blue-sky thinking you indulge in, be sure to enjoy it this weekend.