Every country gets the circus it deserves. Spain gets bullfights. Italy gets the Catholic Church. America gets Hollywood.

Erica Jong

If you have ever been at a circus, there is a good chance that you were greeted by the ringmaster announcing: “Welcome to the biggest, most dangerous, amazing and spectacular show you have ever seen in your entire life!”

You might have quietly said to yourself, “I don’t have to go to a circus for that. My every-day life feels like that.”

That’s what I thought when I was asked whether I wanted to go to Circus Gerbola with Pádraig last week.

But I wasn’t prepared for what we experienced in that relatively small, a little bit miserable feeling, tent.

There were no tigers or elephants. They did not have exotic animals in cages.

But what they presented was breathtakingly spectacular. And we had the time of our lives.

Everybody gets the circus they deserve, to paraphrase Erica.

Gerbola was brilliant.

Exactly what what Pádraig deserves.

Tomorrow, Monday 9 May, at 13:00, Prof Joseph J. Fins, eminent author of the defining book on severe Acquired Brain Injury: Rights come to Mind, will open the 1st International Summer School on Life and Living with a sABI: Leave No One Behind, with a Keynote that will be well worth joining online.

You are also invited to join An Saol in Santry this coming Saturday, 10:00-13:00, in person for the closing session of the Summer School, followed by a light lunch.

Details on the week-long Summer School and for free registration go to http://www.ansaol.ie

It is not too late to join this year’s #IronMonth Challenge. Cover the distances of the world-famous IronMan over the month of May. For details go to http://www.iron-month.com.