The day started badly. I woke up in a panic. It happens so often that I get mixed up with the time that I got paranoid about it. There is always this hour: one ahead in Germany, one behind in Ireland. Since my calendar started to schedule appointments for me it never managed to make up its mind whether it was making the appointments for me in German or Irish time – all of which also depends were I am at the time in question.

I kind of relaxed thinking that the appointment could not have been made for 7am. Yes, I know, the people checking the smoke alarms in our apartment arrived just after seven, and when they were renovating the apartment next door, the workmen also started at around that time. But a garage? Never!

I decided to play it save and guess what the guy in the grey kittle (it’s white for doctors, grey for engineers) said to me when I arrived at the garage at 7.20am? He said: I am so sorry but I cannot check the car out right now, the next appointment will be arriving in 10 minutes and that will not give me sufficient time for your car. Leave the keys and the papers here and I will squeeze you in some time during the day. Would you believe it?

It was 7.20am in the morning!

On the way back home on the bus, I thought for a moment that Michael O’Leary of Ryanair had taken over Hamburg bus: there were ‘stand-up seats’ at the back of the bus!

Thankfully, the day got better.

Pádraig once again got the magic 66/99 heart rate/oxygen levels ratio (that’s the figure you can turn onto its he’d and it still means the same, remember?). On a couple of occasions he even reach 100%. It literally couldn’t get much better than this. He continues to eat twice a day – and we are determined to make that ‘3’ next week! We’re also asking could he not drink!? Not completely liquid-dy things, but there is stuff you can put into drinks to make them a bit thicker so that there is less of a danger for it to end up in the wrong tube. We went out for a walk again on the roof terrace: 13 steps in each direction, a bit like Sing-Sing.

We asked would there be a Christmas event, with songs, smells, o tannenbaum, and general feels-like-Christmas type of stuff. There will be one on the ward tomorrow just after lunch, but Pádraig will not be able to join in. We won’t be able to bring in any Christmas tree look alike, and we won’t be allowed to take him out even for just a few hours. – We promised Pádraig that this will be the last, the very last not-so-much-fun-in-hospital-kind-a-Christmas!

Got word today that An Saol is now a registered non-profit. A bit of progress on this front too, so. A beginning!

Finally, just heard on the Irish News that Beaumont Hospital is asking patients not to attend its emergency department because of overcrowding. Leo agrees that this is not the ideal situation. But is he doing anything about it?