It’s a history day today. For different reasons. All involving Germans.

It’s the Armistice, of course, that dominated the news today. Ceremonies all day long. I had to think of my grandfather who had been shot and a bullet lodged in his lungs during WWI. No idea how he had survived. Neither him nor anyone else in the family really talked much about it.

And then, Borussia Dortmund beat Bayern München in an epic match today, 3:2. Borussia fans even sang the Bayern ‘anthem’ after the match. “Wir sind aus München, wir sind die Bayern. Wir sind die, die immer wieder feiern.”

The event most on my mind today, however, was the 5th anniversary of Pádraig and myself leaving Beaumont Hospital really early in the morning in an ambulance for the airport where an air ambulance was waiting to fly us to Hamburg. The physio in Beaumont had started in the middle of the night to prepare Pádraig for the journey and there was good wishes and holy water from the staff sending us off. Little did I know then that this was only the beginning of a long long journey.

If you feel like it, listen to one of the first anti-war songs, I Didn’t Raise My Boy to be a Soldier -sung by the all-male PEERLESS QUARTET.