Baby, wenn ich down bin und ich fühl mich schwach… the song that should have been today’s German music tip. I know this is not everybody’s cup of tea, but I really like Lindenberg. In a funny way, he is like my sailing adventures. They never caught on with the rest of the family. I could listen to Lindenberg, and sail on the highest wave of the Atlantic for the rest of my days. But then, life is not like that. It’s unpredictable, out of our control.

I was thinking a lot about the 50 swimmers getting ready for next weekend. They are about to embark on two days of an adventure that none of them will ever forget for the rest of their lives. I believe that they have found what all of us are looking for (never mind Paul Hewson and his combo saying otherwise: Companionship, solidarity, fun, adventure, compassion, a sense of duty, their language, their culture, their home, heimat. The thing is, there is no need to climb high mountains in the Himalayas, cross barren deserts in Africa, or go white water rafting in Down Under to find yourself and at least a bit of the meaning of life. A lot of it is right in front of your eyes. You just have to reach out.

I had the feeling today that Pádraig was really with us. We did a bit of supplementary physio with him, just moving his fingers, arms, toes, and feet. It felt like as if he was really cooperating. He moved his foot again and pressed his toes up and down when we asked him to do so. 2-3 times in a row.

We didn’t manage to have our weekly meeting with the physio and the OT today, but are trying to re-schedule it for tomorrow. One thing we noticed today was that Pádraig is getting much more receptive to what is happening around him and with him. His ‘good’ left eye today was a little bit clogged up with, what I would call ‘Schlaf’ in German – the stuff you have in or around your eye in the morning sometimes. We called a nurse and she cleaned it out, very softly, very carefully, but his whole body reacted to the ‘intrusion’ into his eye. He clearly felt what was going on and didn’t like it! Just a few weeks ago, he probably wouldn’t even have noticed that.

Gerry Adams wrote a bi-lingual blog about Pádraig, you can read it here. He has promised to stay on the case.
‘Today with Sean O’Rourke’ on RTÉ called today and are planning to have Pádraig’s story on the programme tomorrow at 10am.
Hopefully, there will be another report on Snámh in The Journal on Saturday.
TG4 TV will be recording a report on Monday next, for ‘Roísín’.

Today’s German Music Tip
The BossHoss, HeyYa (2008). They sing in English but won the National/German Echo Music Price for best Rock/Pop Gruppe. Here they are at a live concert – where else – in Hamburg!

What’s hot
Getting on
What’s cold
Control
The German word/phrase/verse of the day
Kinderleicht

Twitter: @forPadraig
http://www.caringforPadraig.org