Driving down the 101. California here we come. Right back where we started from.
On the stereo. Listen as we go. Nothing’s gonna stop me now.
California (Phantom Planet)

LAX, Santa Monica, Carmel and Monterey, Big Sur, San Francisco, Napa, Yosemite, and back home. Amazing what you can do in a week. It is a special anniversary and we decided to mark it.

What I had not anticipated was Pádraig’s presence. He had been here before us and he was with us travelling up the 101, California 1, into Yosemite. Full of his incredible youthful energy, carefree, joyful, can-do, attitude.

I am signalling you through the flames.

The North Pole is not where it used to be.

Manifest Destiny is no longer manifest.

Civilization self-destructs.

Have wide-angle vision, each look a world glance. Espress the vast clarity of the outside world, the sun that sees us all, the moon that strews its shadow on us, quire garden ponds, willows, where the hidden thrush sings, dusk fallen along the river run, and the great spaces that open out upon the sea … high tide and the herons call … And the people, the people, yes, all around the earth, speaking Babel tongues. Give voice to them all.

Make it new news.

Write beyond time.

Reinvent the idea of truth. 

Reinvent the idea of beauty.

Question everything and everyone, including Socrates, who questioned everything.

Be subversive, constantly questioning reality and the status quo.

Read between the lines and write between the lines.

Avoid the provincial, go for the universal.

Don’t be so open-minded that your brains fall out.

Sweep away the cobwebs.

Resist much, obey less.

Come out of your closet. It’s dark in there.

This is from a book by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Poetry as Insurgent Art. Amazingly, it was first published in 1975, yet it reads as if it was contemporary.

Ferlinghetti co-founded City Lights Bookstore in 1953 in San Francisco’s North Beach, a central meeting point for the Beat Generation, including Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. A few years later, he famously published Allen Ginsberg’s Howl (1956) and was arrested, tried for obscenity for publishing Howl, and acquitted, marking a major victory for free speech and artistic expression in America.

Next week will not be back to normal. ‚California‘ here we come. On our own 101. Those 1,000 miles just got us going. Nothing’s gonna stop me now.

In the Irish language, there are 99 words for rain and one for sun.
Manchán Magan

Manchán was a writer and documentary maker, one of the best known promoters of the Irish language. Last week, he died at the age of 55. Pádraig and Manchán knew each other and staid in touch. Manchán wrote to him following Pádraig’s accident and Pádraig wrote to Manchán when he heard about his illness. His recent programmes are on the RTÉ Player and are one of the most beautiful documentaries about Ireland and the Irish culture you could watch.

Such an amazing way to see the world. To approach life.

Rather than trying to convince the in-convincible, Manchán went his way and invited us to come along. Whether we went was up to us.

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Sunday Independent, 28 September 2025

In her article in last Sunday’s Sunday Independent, Maeve Sheehan tried to capture the conundrum we’re finding ourselves in. The politicians are supporting what we’re proposing. The civil servants have a mind of their own. An unelected body directing the elected.

There are political declarations, plenty of news coverage over the whole week on Ireland’s official broadcaster RTÉ by Ailbhe Conneely, Social Affairs and Religion Correspondent, but a deafening silence on Teach An Saol. Yet —

Minister for Children and Disability Norma Foley said she is determined to work with the HSE to plan residential services for people with disabilities who are being cared for at home by ageing parents. (RTÉ, 01 Oct 2025)

The Media, the fourth pillar in a democratic system, holds government and powerful figures accountable by investigating wrongdoing, ensuring transparency, and fostering public discourse. Yet, they too often seem to function as just another branch of Government.

Promoting a Minister’s statement saying that she is planning residential services for people with disabilities who are being cared for at home by ageing parents, without pointing out that she is, at the same time, allowing the HSE to shoot down a readily available, fully designed solution with planning permission and all, is, at a minimum, bad research and unbalanced, and looks to me like a shameful way of unwarranted Government support.

We don’t need more headlines blindly promoting Government policies. We need someone to hold them to account.

There comes a time when you wonder if it makes sense to keep knocking your head against a wall or if it has become an act of insanity, as you keep doing the same thing over and over again and expect different results (Einstein).

There comes a time when Carlos Wallace’ advice starts making sense:

You don’t fail by walking away; you fail by staying somewhere you’ve outgrown.

Perhaps it’s time to explore the 99 varieties of rain. Not in the “big smoke” but away in places where you can connect with different values.

Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth. (Henry David Thoreau, quoted in Into the Wild)

The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new.
Socrates

It’s that simple.

We spend much time getting annoyed and frustrated, sometimes very sad, trying to change the old. Arguing with systems. Trying to change rules. Hoping that something, somewhere, will finally shift. And we get exhausted.

What if, instead, we left all this behind and put our energy into building the new? Into creating something that wasn’t there before. Into shaping a different way of living, caring, and being together.

Seeing it in small things first. In a silent smile breaking through a long silence. A family finding hope. A moment that says: there is still more here.

Change doesn’t have to be dramatic. It doesn’t need to shout. Sometimes it is just a small step — forward, sideways, or even back — but it opens up a space that wasn’t there before.

Trying to change the old has its place, but it rarely gives life. Building the new does. And that is where our energy, however little of it we may have, is best spent.

Sometimes, walking away would be easier. Anybody can do easy. We will stay.

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God has no other hands than ours.

Last night we listened to a very unusual sermon. A catholic priest talking about a protestant theologian whose believe it was that we are “God’s hands” in alleviating pain, fighting oppression, and creating healing structures. That because God does not magically intervene, humans are called to resist suffering where it is caused by injustice. That we cannot say that we didn’t know. That it was of no concern to us. That we did not understand. That we could not change anything anyway.

In the face of suffering you cannot sit on the fence. You have to take sides. And you have to act. Otherwise, you become complicit.

The German theologian Dorothee Sölle (1929-2003) believed that confronting suffering leads to a deeper spirituality. That prayer and union with God empower us to act against suffering, not to escape from it.

In her book “Suffering”, or “Leiden“, she says that suffering should not lead to passivity or silent endurance and makes a case against resignation. She says suffering becomes bearable when it is shared. For her, suffering should not be glorified but transformed into action. Suffering should “become protest”. In other words, the good fight is to turn pain into resistance and hope.

For Sölle, love is an act of resistance — because to love in the face of suffering is already part of the struggle against it.

Not in a long, long time have I heard a call to action against suffering caused by injustice so convincingly and clearly.

Stay with us. Don’t walk away.

Join us.

The honour of the political leader is the exclusive personal responsibility for what he does … The official is expected to renounce personal responsibility.
Max Weber, Politics as a Vocation, 1919

Young lives, not nursing homes — deliver Teach An Saol.

Teach An Saol has all but disappeared: the HSE’s new “Teach na Cumas” plan ignores the original rights-based proposal with Social, Therapy, Respite & Temporary Supported Living hubs. Families gave years of work and pro bono design — now all that remains is space for current services in a shared building. When did political promises to keep young people with severe ABI out of nursing homes become optional?

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Please stay with me.

I would like to share with you a review of and important news about the call of families affected by a severe Acquired Brain Injury (sABI) for an integrated service in the “House of Life”, Teach An Saol. A call we developed into a proposal submitted to the HSE on their request. A call supported by politicians across the parties. A call that echoes the aspirations of the Irish Government to keep young people out of nursing homes and claims their right to live a healthy, fulfilled life with dignity and respect.

I will also share with you the response we just received from the Irish Health Service Executive to this powerful call for a National Centre for Life and Living with severe Acquired Brain Injury — a centre integrating Therapy, Social, Respite, and Temporary Supported Living hubs. This response arrived only last week, after years of dedicated and tireless work by so many on behalf of those left behind for far too long. It offers new, dedicated space for the current operations of the An Saol Foundation — but, regrettably, makes no mention of Teach An Saol, neither in name nor in concept.

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Teach An Saol, the An Saol Foundation’s National Centre for Life and Living with a severe Acquired Brain Injury, with Social, Therapy, Respite and Transitional Living Hubs, as well as nationwide Satellite Centres, is a development in response to the request of the HSE Clinical Lead for Disability and the 2023 HSE Review and Recommendations of the international independent expert panel.

It was presented at a Teach An Saol Working Group Meeting in June 2023, organised by the Minister for Disability, Anne Rabbitte, at the An Saol Foundation in Santry, Dublin, and widely supported at that meeting. The meeting was attended by the Minister and her aides, local and national HSE representatives, a Senator and a TD, as well as by representatives of the An Saol Foundation. At that meeting, the Minister was so enthusiastic about the project that she promised to finance Teach An Saol if the An Saol Foundation secured a site for it.

Within weeks, Dublin City Council made a site available to the An Saol Foundation under the condition that it would secure funding for the building from the Government and the HSE.

The HSE told the An Saol Foundation on 09/01/24 that a Full Capital Submission would have to be completed by 30/01/2024. A few days later, on 18/01/24, the An Saol Foundation was told that this full capital submission would ”be finished tomorrow”. When it transpired, a week later on 24/01/24, that this had not happened, the An Saol Foundation was told not to worry. “The project will still be up for prioritisation in 2024 with all other competing projects for a funding allocation in 2025.”

The proposal was prepared with the assistance of and with input from the Teach An Saol Planning Group. The initial planning group was significantly expanded in early 2024 and has been meeting weekly since to prepare the submission of the application for planning permission for Teach An Saol. Ireland’s biggest names in engineering, planning, architecture, and the legal field have recently prepared detailed answers to the request by Dublin City Council (DCC) for further information on that application and will submit them soon to DCC, hopefully leading to the granting of planning permission.

The record of the Irish Parliament, Dáil Éireann, the Irish Senate, Seanad Éireann, and the Joint Committee of the Houses of Parliament, the Oireachtas, show the overwhelming support of the representatives of the Irish People for Teach An Saol. This is well documented in the Oireachtas records and on the An Saol Foundation’s website. These Oireachtas members include Mary Fitzpatrick, Paul McAuliffe, Aubrey McCarthy, Niamh Smyth, Dessie Ellis, Cian O’Callaghan, and many more. DCC Council Members, such as Gayle Ralph, have worked tirelessly for Teach An Saol.

Over the past months, it transpired that the site, made available by Dublin City Council, under conditions, to the An Saol Foundation for Teach An Saol, was going into the ownership of the HSE. Rather than providing the funding to the An Saol Foundation to build Teach An Saol, the HSE decided that it will build and own the building designed by the An Saol Foundation’s Working Group pro bono – a contribution by Irish companies to the An Saol Foundation worth probably in the region of €500,000.

More recently, and following year-long consultations and close to half a dozen revision cycles requested by the HSE, the HSE decided that the building design was too sizeable for our purposes and that another HSE service would have to be co-located in Teach An Saol.

Last week, the excellent news came that the HSE was finally processing the first official step in the capital grant application.

With it came a big surprise.

The HSE now proposes Teach na Cumas, the National Centre for Disability Inclusion and Neuro-Rehabilitation, a HSE-owned regional (sic!) hub co-locating three organisations, among them the An Saol Foundation, under long-term lease agreements.

It has to be very much welcomed that the HSE has finally decided to offer permanent space to the An Saol Foundation in a brand new, purpose-built facility at a nominal rate. Following years of stalling, of apparent in-action, no real formal progress along the HSE bureaucracy, this is a step in the right direction.

While there are many positive aspects to this plan it, however, regrettably has little got to do with the project proposed by the An Saol Foundation responding to a request by the HSE and emphatically supported by those directly affected by a sABI and their families, members of the Oireachtas, Dublin City Council, prominent Irish companies, and, last but not least, by the HSE itself.

On 28th June this year, Paul McAuliffe of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Disability questioned the HSE about their support for the An Saol Foundation’s Teach An Saol Project. Bernard Gloster, CEO, complimented the An Saol Foundation on their excellent work and said that he would be more than happy to meet to advance the Teach An Saol project.

Regrettably, in the HSE’s current proposal, there is no mention of Teach An Saol, there is no mention that it will be build in two phases, and the only mention of respite and supported short-term living in the proposal was left in it most likely through oversight.

That leaves the question: Who is in charge of giving the go-ahead for this new, very different project, rather than to Teach An Saol, a development that all agree is desperately needed; that all agree is being delivered very effectively and efficiently by the An Saol Foundation; and that is being offered on a silver platter to the civil servants to execute?

Just a few weeks ago, I met a 19-year old teenager and his family in the National Rehabilitation Hospital (NRH) on a Sunday. It was his last day in the NRH. The following day, he was discharged to a nursing home in Wexford.

Seriously: how can this still be allowed to happen? How can those responsible sleep at night? Why are they not held to account? This is, literally, stomach turning. Just stop and think about it. A 19-year old teenager being shipped off to a nursing home because there is nothing better for him available?

Except there is. Or, at least there could be.

My family were once in that situation when the first question we were asked was, “Which nursing home is he (Pádraig) going to go to?“. For the last 10 years, I have been working with families who have suffered almost unbearable pain, some of them were torn apart, because of the unsustainable and in-humane practice of placing young people in inappropriate care instead of supporting them appropriately to live their lives with their injuries.

Today, if you suffer a severe Acquired Brain Injury (sABI) in Ireland, you and your family will still not only have learn to live with the obvious, very dramatic, changes in your abilities and circumstances. You will also be deprived of your right to a life where you are enabled to look after your body, mind, and soul: your wellbeing.

Teach An Saol offers a real opportunity to change this situation.

This is not a question of finance. This is a question of political will and focussed execution.

Letting this opportunity pass would be a tragedy. Allowing the takeover of the work done by and for the An Saol Foundation’s Teach An Saol, and just build another HSE building where the An Saol Foundation would be one of three tenants raises many difficult questions.

The most important and pressing of these question is:

Who is Charge?

Max Weber, widely regarded as one of the founding figures of modern social science, had the answer, just over a hundred years ago.

Finally, and paraphrasing Dylan Thomas, here is a promise:

We will not go gentle into that good night. But rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Note: The section “Young lives, not nursing homes — deliver Teach An Saol.” was added on Monday, 22 September 2025.

If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavours to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.
Henry David Thoreau

Leo Tolstoy, Jack London, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Henry David Thoreau were Christopher McCandless’ favourite writers as reported by Jon Krakauer in his book Into the Wild. Especially Thoreau’s Walden and his essay Civil Disobedience, heavily influenced McCandless’s ideals about freedom, simplicity, and living close to nature.

The most memorable quote from Into the Wild is probably “Happiness is only real when shared” – which is not from any of these famous writers but from Christopher McCandless himself. He wrote it into his copy of Leo Tolstoy’s Family Happiness. When Chris wrote it in 1992, he had achieved Freedom, just another word for Nothing Left to Loose, in Alaska. And when he had realised that life’s meaning is all about the connection with others. Shortly before his very lonely, tragic death in the wilderness. A complete turnaround from his pre-Alaska believes.

We came back from Lourdes last week.

There was a candlelight procession like never before, in the underground basilica rather than around the outside square because of a threatening thunderstorm. A quiz afternoon with helpers in Pádraig’s room. A taste of Lourdes’ best hot chocolate in the Café Ste Marie, Rue Sainte-Marie, opposite the Café Brasserie Les Brancardiers. A walk through the Grotto and along the river Gave de Pau. Lighting the candles.

Above all, however, there was the company and the kindness of the people we met. Many of them we had met before, some for the first time. All now good friends.

Someone we hadn’t met before was the musician Shobsy who went out of his way to sing with the old and the young their favourite songs.

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Over the past years, we have met many people who could not longer live their lives as they had imagined.

Just before we went to Lourdes, we met a 19-year old man with his family who was going to be discharged from a rehab hospital to a nursing home.

I find this impossible to take. This does not have to happen. We should just not allow it. Nobody wants this to happen. Yet it still does. – Because allowing him to live at home or in an alternative, life-fulfilling environment would be too expensive?

Come on!!!!

One day, we will meet with success unexpected in common hours because we advance confidently in the direction of our dreams and provide those who need our help the support they need to do the same.

How can politicians and public servants sleep at night knowing that their lack of focus, their lack of urgency, their lack of action, their excuses and their lack of empathy leaves so many people in absolute misery?

A 19-year old with a life ahead of him cannot be placed in a nursing home. So, why is he, when we know how to avoid this, when we have the recipe for success?

The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.
Pablo Picasso

It’s another 10 year anniversary for Pádraig this year.

It was just two years after he had been knocked off his bike by Mr Couto that we went to Lourdes for the first time. I had just arrived from Dublin in Hamburg at 2am with his first wheelchair car, donated to him by good friends in Dublin, when we set off to Diepholz to catch the German pilgrim train to Lourdes at dawn. Two days and a night later we arrived. Despite the medical support provided by the Order of Malta on the train, we were more than nervous. This was his first trip after a year and a half in hospital. With more than one scare.

10 years after, three days ago, Pádraig joined a Dublin group and took a plane. This week, there are approximately 1,500 Dubliners in Lourdes. He knows many of them from previous years. Recognises them, shares with them one of his great smiles and waves when he sees old friends. Without them, this now annual trip, our whole journey, would not be possible. He is travelling, we are travelling On Eagles Wings.

Hundreds of young people are here who are going out of their way to help those who need help. Those who in their daily life have to fight for everything. Those who usually are locked away in nursing homes. Without much of, or no voice at all. Who are rarely asked what they would like to do next or whether they would like to go somewhere. Maybe for a meal in one of the street-side restaurants and cafés.

While the world has changed almost beyond recognition, Lourdes has not.

Strolling through the streets, really tacky shops still sell really tacky stuff. Marias of every size and colour. Candles that look like they’d burn into eternity.

Away from the tackiness, however, there is no place on earth coming even close to the spirit of Lourdes.. And getting out of my routine always allows me to see life in a different way.

Since we arrived here two days ago, it became increasingly clear to me that it is not us who help Pádraig. It is the other way around. He is helping us. To see, feel, and understand what is really important in life. To find what everybody is looking for and many people never find. Meaning and purpose.

It doesn’t take away the moments of almost unbearable sadness and those thoughts about “what if”. What if Couto had watched out for Pádraig and had put his foot on the breaks to avoid the car heading straight at him, rather than putting his foot on the accelerator? What if he had not crossed those double yellow lines and had stayed behind Pádraig for a few minutes, with a bit of patience, rather than thinking of his next appointment that he was rushing to?

I am thinking, in all my sadness and my tears, that there is another side to the devastating events of 12 years ago.

In a most terrible and at the same time most profoundly beautiful way, Pádraig has found his gift and with it the meaning of his life. More, he found purpose. He is making us better people.

By giving his gift away.

Sharing it with us.

And into the wild we go, losing ourselves in music, finding ourselves in the magic.
Anon

We are not at the Electric Picnic, Ireland’s biggest and most popular music and arts festival. Ireland’s answer to Glastonbury. Famous for its Body & Soul area. And it’s mind blowing.

So, altogether, the Electric Picnic is An Saol all wrapped up in a long weekend caring for: body, mind, and soul.

To my shame, it was the first time last week, that I realised the great work one of the practitioners in An Saol is doing; she even brings in her complete set of singing bowls with each producing different frequencies and vibrations.

A local councillor posted an update of her work through the door with a picture we had taken before the summer of Part 1 of a meeting which should have had Part 2 happening some weeks ago. There is hope…

And the final picture is from a new, cool, 3D printed ‘button’ working with one of the magic adaptable controllers from Galway Startup Byowave who are collaborating with the An Saol Foundation on accessible gaming settings.

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I met with a young, 19-year-old man and his family in the National Rehabilitation Hospital yesterday. It was like a dejà-vu. There now is a brand new building, but for the young man who had suffered a severe Acquired Brain Injury things weren’t really that different from what Pádraig and us experienced during his stay there, around 10 years ago now.

Reading Kevin’s news about his daughter Hannah who is back in Beaumont Hospital. The anxiety. The wait for this phone call. The uncertainty.

There have been, and there are, moments when I just want to get away. Get into the car with Pádraig and Pat. And drive away.

And I don’t know why it was a thing with me—that irrational fear that kept me here.
Conor McPherson, The Weir

Jack’s monologue, and indeed the entire play, is a reminder to live fully, speak honestly, and take the chances that matter—because silence and safety can become their own kind of prison.

We can never become complicit. We can never abandon our sons and daughters and partners, as we are supposed to because they are lost cases anyways. Instead, we have to break out of this prison of silence and safety. And go Into the Wild.

Commitment is an act, not a word.
Jean-Paul Sartre

Why is it so difficult to align what we know with what we do? I never fully understood what a “dialectic” relationship is. This might be one. It’s a case of: well, on this side… but then again on the other side…

It’s a question like the one about ‘freedom to choose’ against ‘everything is planned for us already’; or ‘there is a moral imperative’ against ‘it all depends and there is no right or wrong’; or ‘life’ and ‘death’ decisions.

The thing is, whatever the answer, one has to make up their mind. Even if this is hard at times.

It’s even more complicated than just deciding. Because making up your mind is only the beginning. You say the word – that takes a second. Then you have to act – for a lifetime.

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The PhD student who had been working with Pádraig for more than three years came back last week to see Pádraig and us for a last time. When he went through the 14 sessions he had with Pádraig, it became apparent, how much hope, energy, amazement, and fun they all were. And how much work he had invested.

He will be handing in his PhD in a few weeks time. The lasting legacy from his work for Pádraig is mostly in memories and experiences rather than a change in Pádraig’s ability to access devices to communicate, to play and have fun, or yo play an instrument. Nevertheless, they were fantastic.

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Pádraig has made up his mind. He will not be quitting. He has a level of tolerance and hope, a believe in humanity and decency, and a focus, that are all extraordinary and inspiring.

It is him who keeps me going in times of doubt, sadness, tremendous disappointment, helplessness, disbelief, and desperation.

When I need to believe that I can do what I know. That I can commit and make my actions follow my words. I think of him.

Life is just a lame, less metal version of death, and that’s why only hippies care about it.
Philomena Cunk (Diane Morgan)

We are back.

It is late and I will keep this short. With pictures that, I think, capture the essence of our holidays: fun, tons of time in the wide open spaces, and spending time in the company of the most interesting people.

Fun

Have you ever watched Cunk on Earth? Here is Pádraig’s reaction when, as far as I know, he watched her show for the first time.

If you haven’t watched it, try it. He thought it was hilarious. If you have a little more time, watch her interview with Stephen Colbert on the Late Show.

Wide Open Spaces

From the North Sea Coast to the Rotterdam and Europe’s biggest sea port.

In the Company of Friends

You have seen Garding several times. But it’s always surprising. Not necessarily because of the quality of the music but because of the bands’ enthusiasm and dedication. Where would you find it: Four dead in Ohio, 50 ways to leave your lover, so people get ready because there’s a train a-coming, it’s gonna be a bright sun shiny day, nothing but blue sky, though yesterday’s gone and you’re feeling strong, in the purple rain.

The world, life, is good. Sometimes, we just have to open our eyes a little bit more to see it. With focus. And fewer distractions.

You say you want a revolution, well, you know we all wanna change the world.
John Lennon

Yes, I want a revolution. Just not because I “wanna change the world”, like John, but because I wanna safe it from itself. – Or would you call that a counter-revolution?

Let me get back to this in a minute.

Handscupe for iPad

Last week, we had a visit from Ellen, a bioengineering student from the Technical University of Dortmund. She had spent some considerable time adapting a Handscupe (R) for Pádraig. It’s kind of a souped-up version of what the PhD student in Dublin had built – and which Pádraig could not use without his support because of its complexity.

Ellen’s version has a built-in giroscope, as well as five long contact strips, one for each finger, which work just like keys on a keyboard, or mouse buttons, and which can be configured using Anaconda Navigator, Arduino, the Spider IDE, and a Python script. If you think it sounds a bit technical, you are right. Ellen gave me an intensive short course on this – but I have decided not to touch the configuration unless I really have to. I don’t want to mess it up.

Pádraig can now use the Handscupe as his access method to the communication tool Predictable, to a video game, and, amazingly, to any app running on an iPad.

So he tried Spotify.

A word of caution: turn down the volume of your device before watching the video below – just click on the picture.

Here are a few stills of Pädraig using Predictable by both clicking his way through different sections and by using one of the configurable keyboards.

It is still early days and it will take a lot of practice on Pádraig’s and on our part until we’ll be able to fully and consistently use the Handscupe and iPad navigation. But this is a big step forward in the right direction.

On Tuesday, we went back to Garding. As the clouds were hanging low and there had been frequent showers during the day, the organisers had decided to go indoors – to my knowledge for the first time in the long history of :Garding’s Tuesdays Summer Music Festival.

Musik für Garding – Indoors

Jesus is hanging from the cross over the altar of Garding’s historic church St Christian, the second oldest church in Eiderstedt in the North of Germany, reportedly built in 1109/1117. Tuesday, 06 August 2025, was a rainy day and as it was one of the days of Garding’s Tuesday music summer festivals, the church opened its gates to the music lovers who immediately bonded with this highly unusual rock music venue. Pádraig enjoyed the venue, the music, the atmosphere. Nothing like the acoustics of a 1000 year old church!

Watch this is a short video clip of the live act.

Between the Showers

On the few occasions that it didn’t rain last week, we went for walks.

For the first time in our lives, we saw a bicycle recharging station, complete with an electric pump and some basic repair tools – just behind the dike in Westerhever and free to use for anybody who needed them. While the tools for the bicycles were free, parking was not. Not anywhere. Not even for wheelchair cars.

Hard Work

Pádraig also went back to see Esteban, a brilliant OT from Chile who, only God knows why, has been working in Tönning for the past few years, about half an hour away from our base.

He got to know Pádraig pretty well over time and both are getting on really well with each other.

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The thought came to me during the week: What if –

This is as good as it gets?

Do I really want the world to change even more, to drift, or being pushed, into a direction where even common decency, never mind common sense, seems to be a thing of the past and lunatics are pushing the world to the brink of chaos?

Last week saw the 80th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the US Air Force using atomic bombs for the first time in history. “Never again” was anything like this, ever, to happen again. Now that an international rule-based system is being replaced by the right of the strongest, those lessons from history don’t seem to be remembered anymore.

There is a revolution happening and it is being televised. It is one that needs to be stopped.

I am with John and his chorus –

I want a revolution, well, you know we all wanna change the world.
But when you talk about destruction
Don’t you know that you can count me out?