It was one of the loveliest mornings, followed by a great afternoon.

When the rain stopped this morning, Pádraig and I went for a walk into the Botanic Gardens. We walked slowly, stopped, looked, smelled, felt, listened. It came to a point where I was wondering what we are doing inside, sheltered from anything close to nature, with artificial lights, rapped in noise coming out of the aether, with spring scent being sprayed out of a Johnson & Johnson bottle, and food produced in a factory.

The problem is: nature doesn’t sell, doesn’t create employment, doesn’t generate wealth, doesn’t bring success. It’ll most likely disappear and the Yellow Taxi will drive you by a parking lot where once there were trees, now being kept in a tree museum.

We’re forgetting about the important things. We don’t know what we’ve got ’til is gone, Joni Mitchell would say.

Pádraig checked out a different swimming pool today. During a public swimming hour. We didn’t have to arrange anything special for him. The pool was the Enable Ireland pool in Sandymount, but it was public swimming and there were plenty of other people in the pool with him. No stretcher to get him into the water, just a shower chair kind of seat. First I thought that this would be difficult, but it wasn’t difficult at all. In the end I thought, maybe it’s a good job that there wasn’t a stretcher but just a chair. It was great to see and it must have felt great for him to see that he could manage in the chair.

Found a great quote by Mark Twain that made me think: “All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure.”