Just saw on the RTÉ news that Seán FitzPatrick will be getting legal aid.  Seán FitzPatrick was, just in case you have forgotten (or are to young to remember:), the chairperson of Anglo Irish Bank until 2008 when he had to resign because of scandals leading to a collapse of the bank’s share price and eventual nationalisation in late January of 2009, for which people in Ireland are still paying. The Irish Citizens Information website says: “The Legal Aid Board provides legal aid and advice in civil cases to people in Ireland who satisfy certain requirements (principally, their means must be below a certain limit and there must be merit in the case)”. – In other words: Seán has no money and his case has sufficient merit to justify the expenditure of our money to pay his solicitors. Mmmmmhhhh… what have I missed here?

Loads of examinations. Several doctors. And the verdict is: Pádraig has a haematoma (I’d call it a bruise) on his shoulder and upper arm. As he is getting blood thinners (that’s what everybody gets who spends many hours in bed and doesn’t move that much to avoid a thrombosis) that haematoma is a bit bigger than it would usually be, we were told. In 15 months, it’s the first time he’s had a haematoma. From today, he is getting more pain killers to deal with the discomfort (I’d call it pain), pain killers he did not get over the last two days because they could also have masked a fever caused by a possible infection, his doctor said, which has now been eliminated as a possible cause for the swollen shoulder. We don’t know yet what the cause of the haematoma is.

Pádraig has not got out of bed since Sunday. We did not get him into his wheelchair because we did not want to hurt his shoulder and arm even more. For his visiting friend from Ireland today, it was a great pity that we could not get out and about with him, at least up onto the roof garden. It’ll be months until she’ll be able to visit him again.

Today, just before checking out, I checked Aldi’s ‘reduced products’ stand and discovered a ‘Mangoteiler’. I can be an impulse buyer and have been known to buy stuff, especially in Aldi, not because I needed it, but because I thought: “Well, you never know. Although you mightn’t need this right now, one day when you will need it, you mightn’t find one.” Do you know this feeling? Are there ‘pockets’ in your house full of ‘stuff’ you bought, you keep, you don’t get rid of because, well: just in case? Yes?

I think we all have had moments when we did really stupid things. Things we regret now. When we hurt others or spend money on stuff we shouldn’t have spend it on. But there are limits. In my case it was the Mangoteiler. Had I bought this beautiful kitchen utensil today (although every household should have a Mangoteiler:), I know for certain that I would have been told to bring it back to the shop immediately for a full refund. And I know that – out of the context of the shop, in the cold light of the day – I would have realised that I had made a mistake. I would have said: “You are right and I’m sorry. I should not have bought this Mangoteiler. We do not need a Mangoteiler. It was a stupid idea to buy it and I’ll bring it back.” But, as Elton John sang back in 1976, “sorry seems to be the hardest word”, for many.

Oh – with 1,016 popular votes, Hospi-tales is currently at No. 3 in the Best Blog Awards Ireland 2014, just about! So please keep voting on http://www.blogawardsireland.com/best-blog-post-2014/  –  Thank you!