Is it past or is it passed? Or is it both? Past and Passed? That’s where the spelling checkers ain’t working anymore. It’d be really interesting to write (or is it “right”, or both?) a piece just about tricking the spell checker (chequer?).

In any case – the first hurdle is passed. It’s in the past, more accurately: this morning. At 10am on the dot (well, he *is* German:) the door bell rang and the pre-inspector of our apartment got in – with his laptop and, wait, his printer! As you can imagine, we had spent all weekend shopping for all sorts of cleaning utensils and then scrubbing our knuckles off to get the place as clean as a whistle (Google also suggested: as clean as a “gold pants” or “a hound’s tooth” – not sure about either of those two:). At the end of the inspection, he had nothing to point out that had to be fixed but, nonetheless, proceeded to print out two copies of a four page report (a page a room: kitchen, bathroom, two bedrooms) stating, more or less, just that. He was carrying a big black bag which must have been full of blank sheets, in case there had been anything to be fixed in the apartment. The ‘one page a room’ report for nothing to be fixed would surely have gone up considerably in that case. I duly signed his copy, he signed mine, we exchanged them, I immediately filed it away in the special filing folder they had given me when we moved in last December (I’ll soon have to ask them for another folder if the paper work keeps coming at this rate). Anyway…

Also got a call in the afternoon to arrange an appointment to sign the contract . No time lost here. It’ll be Friday morning. Isn’t that great news!

Tomorrow morning: 7am appointment with a plumber to check a leak in the bathroom – it was him who proposed it, what could I do?! 9h30 check in at the Schön-Klinik for a 10am transfer to the UKE.

By the way – have you emailed you family and friends about Amhrán do Pádraig / Song for Pádraig? Have you put it up on your FB? Have you tweeted about it? No? – Tonight it had 866 views on youtube! Tell everybody: family, friends, journalists, DJs, everybody – and join the 122 already signed up friends who will be at the launch of the year on 03 December, 8p, Grand Social, Dublin!

Pádraig was good today with our usual routine of getting out of bed, going for a walk on the roof terrace, getting a bite to eat, some exercise and back into bed.

Keep thinking about Pat’s cousin, his wife and his family. His body is still in Nepal awaiting an autopsy. It’ll apparently be about two weeks before his family can bring him home.