Two dates for your diary first: (1) This coming Saturday will be the last An Saol Café before the summer (HSE Day Centre, Odin’s Wood, 2-5pm). (2) The annual mass of the Society of St James (‘the camino people’) on 23 July in St James’ Church, Dublin.

We went into a Chines Health Centre and Shop on Parnell Square today and found an incredible selection of stuff, in a really old, unassuming building. We went there to buy a machine that issues small electrical stimulus to muscles, one that Pádraig’s physic has been using really successfully with him. The idea is that we’ll learn how to use it and that he can get the benefits of it every day, rather than just a few times a week. While we were there, we heard that they do acupuncture with people who’ve had a stroke – or a brain injury, something we’d heard about in Germany before. Thinking about it.

Also finally and officially booked and paid for Pádraig’s (and our) now annual pilgrimage to Lourdes. We’ll catch the train, again, from Karlsruhe, close to Pforzheim, for the week-long journey with this really incredible group of people who’d I consider friends by now to this place that must be unique in the world with its profound and deep spirituality along with the most tacky and over the top sense of ‘wonder’.

Pádraig’s diary is filling up!

What a privilege it is to have one, to be able to plan, to look ahead. Ahead!