Spooky.

We were driving out onto the road in Tating, when there was a ‘ding’ on Pat’s phone – a reminder.

That’s about the time it takes to drive from Tating to Hamburg. But where on earth did the message come from? Who knew that we might just be starting to drive to Hamburg and how did they find out? – This is the second time something spooky like this is happening to Pat, following Google’s birthday wishes on google.com.

Is someone following her? Where is Big Deartháir watching us? What is their next message going to be? Something like “Don’t forget to lock the door?”, or “Have you switched off the emersion?” (when she is in Dublin), or “Remember to open the windows for ‘Durchzug'” (when she is in Germany)?

We’ll keep you posted. – In other news…

We discovered that we moved up to the penthouse. There is a Lounge (and yes, they call it ‘Lounge’ in German:) with coffee, teas, and what not in a nice room with arm chairs and all. Just outside of Pádraig’s room is a little open lift for wheelchairs to move you up a meter or so to be able to – wait for it! – get out onto the sun deck. A Sun Deck! We could have gone out to get a bit of a tan!

There wasn’t that much sunshine today, but we went out anyway. We sat out on nice chairs in a sheltered corner to let Pádraig feel the wind in his hair and a few sun rays on his face, to listen to the dogs down in the park and the planes high up in the sky, until we felt a few drops on our face and decided it was time to go back in.

You wouldn’t believe what a difference 20, 25 minutes in the fresh air make!

And all of this literally just outside of his door! – The only thing missing were more people, a BBQ, cold drinks, and music. Brilliant.

Great Jacket!

Brilliant sun deck!

A bit windy – but still fine weather!

Tables, chairs, sun umbrellas…

Hopefully, this was the first of many days out in the fresh air! What a difference that would make! – And then, our for real walks, regularly!

The amazing thing is that afterwards he ate about half of a bowl of custard/semolina and stewed apple (Griespudding und Apfelmus for the Germans:). I think he really enjoyed the outing and the food. This must all be good!

POKER NIGHT – Thank you Brian and Niall for all your great work and enthusiasm organising the night. Thank you Brian for your report on what must have been a really enjoyable and fun evening!

Well what a night it was. Tournament didn’t actually end up going until 8.30pm, as we had a few late comes but it worth the wait! We’d 16 poker players in all…with each been given a starting stack of 10,000 chips. Blinds set at 50/100 meant everyone had 100 big blinds….more then enough to play around with!

1st Place: Advan Moorthy
2nd Place Niall Jackson
3rd Place: Brian Sexton

Worst beat = €20 in Hailo taxi credits
Best hand of the night: Laurentina ( Quad 2’s) €20 in Hailo taxi credits
First person out = Paul- €20 in Hailo taxi credits
Luckiest player = €20 in Hailo taxi credits

Today’s German Music Tip
Haftbefehl, Chabos wissen wer der Babo ist (Blockplatin 25.01.2013). More new German Rappen… as the name of the group suggests, this is not mainstream and surely not everybody’s taste, but they’ve pretty successful recently…
What’s hot
Going outside
What’s cold
Being outside:)
The German word/phrase/verse of the day
Penthouse