Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish.
Euripides

When I turned the corner yesterday morning coming out of the hotel, the rain hit me vertically into the face. It was dark, very windy, and very wet. For one second, I was going to turn around. But I continued and gave it a try. That run along the “Concha” in San Sebastián turned out to be the nicest run I can remember.

There was the roaring sea on one side. Nobody was overturning me because I was the only runner on the promenade. And after a minute, I didn’t feel the cold and the rain anymore. It was heaven. At my own pace.

Two hours later, I had done the distance I wanted to do in preparation for next week’s marathon in Hamburg. To get a bit of reassurance that I would be able to finish it.

None of what Pádraig did in the past week he was ever supposed to do ever again. Like I was not supposed to run yesterday morning (or attempt another marathon next week :).

But if you take on the wind and the rain, into your face. right on, you can have the most beautiful experiences. A real Easter experience. Not just of hope but of a beautiful new life.

At the beginning of the week, we started with a few days in Santander, from where we went each day half an hour up to Torrelavega to see our friends Laura and Marcos. They run an amazing Neuro Rehab Clinic there and are some of the best clinicians around.

After a couple of days, we moved on to San Sebastián. We stayed in a nice hotel, directly on one of the world’s most beautiful beaches, La Concha.

No better place in Spain than San Sebastián if you want to experience food beyond sustenance. Food that goes way beyond nutrition. Food that assaults your senses. Food you don’t usually smell or taste in your everyday life.

Food that melts on your tongue. Food that explodes in your mouth. Food that excites your taste buds. Food that is sweet. Sour. Hot. Sweet. Soft. Crispy. Whatever you like it to be. In one place, we started with five (!) different tastes of olive oil, from soft to really strong, produced across the different regions of Spain from Navarra in the North to Andalucía in the South.

Pádraig tasted different types of squid, pulpo, his favourite dish. Chops the size of a wheel coming from an open fire pit. Black rice. Pinchos of any imaginable type. Cheese cake as you never have tasted before.

The sound of summer is coming up from the beach below. Children screaming. Someone trying to earn a few euro playing the trumpet accompanied by a karaoke machine. The waves crushing onto the beach.

The rain has stopped and the sun has come out. Easter is here.

Today, Sunday, we’ll get up really early to drive to Bilbao and get the 30-hour ferry back to Rosslare.

For a week, we have tasted life, literally, and we really, really enjoyed it. Together. We will continue to do so as long as we can. With the wind in our hair, the rain cooling our faces, and the sun burning our skin.

Gracias a la vida que nos ha dado tanto.

In the words of Manual Serrat in his song La Saeta, our Christ is not the one on the cross, but the one who walked on water, the one who left the tomb behind.

Happy Easter.