Spaghetti with tomato sauce seems to be the food Pádraig likes best at the moment, not the stuff from a jar, but home made. Ok, we cut the spaghetti into small pieces, and mashed it just a little bit, but it’s spaghetti, the same we would have a few hours later. It’s slow eating, it’s small quantities, but it’s ‘normal’ food. Who would have thought!

We’re also just back from a long walk along the Wandse at 30oC. The summer smells, the crickets in the grass, it almost felt like the south of France or Spain.

Today, we told the carer and Pádraig’s physio and logo that we will go to Pforzheim in just under two weeks. It’ll be a six weeks stay. A change of environment, “Tapetenwechsel”. Also, a very intense and focussed time of therapy with up to five hours a day.

It’ll be a great opportunity not just for Pádraig, but also for myself to learn about how such a therapy centre works and the kind of therapy given. Usually, they would allocate two therapists to a client such as Pádraig, in our case I will be one of the two to keep the costs down.

It’s one of the most wonderful and beautiful nights in Hamburg. Warm, with a light wind. Perfect.

I’m afraid to leave this behind. Who would have thought that we were going to live almost two years in Hamburg. In Duhlsberg. In Tonndorf. It’s all moving so fast. So slow. So unpredictable. So scary. So Into the Wild.

I never want to leave here. I want to leave straight away. I know that all here would be working our for Pádraig, that there is a system that would always look out after him. I know that his friends are in Dublin that our friends and family are there being not a substitute for but far better than any system I could imagine.

We’ve less than two weeks to go to Pforzheim. Hamburg-time is coming to an end for the time being. What will the future hold?

Today’s German Music Tip
Westernhagen, Wieder hier, Ich rieche den Dreck, ich atme tief ein, und dann bin ich mir sicher wieder zuhause zu sein.
What’s hot
Tapetenwechsel
What’s cold
No music, no dance
The German word/phrase/verse of the day
Das krieg’n wir schon hin!

An  Saol 
Living your life with severe acquired brain injury