Blue sky. Sun. Time to go to the beach. Only that Hamburg – despite being Europe’s second biggest seaport – is not beside the sea. So what do Hamburgers do? They get a few tons of sand and strategically place them on the banks of the river Elbe. Sounds ok until you think again and realize what happens if you create a beach on the banks of the river leading into Europe’s second biggest sea port: It gets cramped – huge container ships fight over space with weekend beach goers. The overall effect is, as one of my family members said, that you feel like going on an excursion into Dublin port and decide to take out your togs and throw yourself into the water. Definitely something you would not do in Dublin – what what’s the choice for poor Hamburgers?

Today I discovered that some underground operation is active in the Schoen-Klinik putting Irish flags onto all sorts of hospital equipment. They do their work very discreetly, but if you look closely you’ll find the tricolor in all sort of unexpected places. The picture here is just one example, showing his beds braking system! Seems those underground Irish have infiltrated the hospital to considerable depth, not stopping at anything – even a bed’s braking system!!!

Padraig today was again twice on the speech valve, once in the morning, the second time in the afternoon. He was, again, off the added oxygen – and he was doing fine! When I arrived today I had to admire the work of his nurse who had really made a huge (and successful) effort to make him feel really really comfortable in his bed. Here was someone that had been doing their work with a lot of dedication and professionalism! The same nurse had also already arranged for Padraig being taken out of the bed and into his wheelchair tomorrow, Sunday. I think this could be a first, and it’s certainly so very very kind to think about it and to make this happen!

Seachtain, the Irish language supplement to the Independent, had another story about the brave Women Mini Marathon runners with a fantastic picture, on 11 June.

Finally – for this day next week, i.e. 20 Friday, the O’Malley Clan has organized a pub quiz for Padraig. It’ll take place in the clan’s stronghold in Crokers Murroe.

I am sitting in Pádraig’s room and thinking how we ended up in Hamburg, Germany? –  Granada, Spain – maybe; Florence, Italy – yes; but Hamburg, Germany??

Then I thought, at least the Germans are good soccer players, and went off to check the odds of Germany winning the world cup. No better place than Paddy Power. So I went and checked it.

Only to find out that the hospital network had decided to block Paddy Power as an ‘inappropriate’ site. = No betting in the Schön-Klinik. Thinking about it, I realised why – There are entire wards for people with addiction problems. They should not be able to do online gambling, at least not from the hospital groun

Pádraig is doing well physically – speech valve twice a day with virtually no complications, wheelchair for a couple of hours, and viva-la-MotoMEd for 3.6km. He is also on the physic’s list for tomorrow, Saturday – which is really great! There have been no major developments since his yes/no communication, but we hope for much more to come. The excursion into the famous Rosengarten cannot be that far away now: wheelchair has arrived, he is stable, can breathe without additional oxygen, and the weather could not be better.

Seems that the Amhrán do Phádraig project is gaining some significant momentum. Check the project out here. And go and join the project meeting next Monday to take part in the recording!

Pádraig’s friends in the Open Sea Swimming world are planning a swim in support of the Caring for Pádraig fund. Visit their website and note the date of the swim. Could be the biggest sea swim this year!

If you are living in the Limerick area, join the O’Malley Clan (Pádraig’s gran was an o”Malley) for their fundraiser on 20 June at 9pm in Crokers Pub, Murroe, Co. Limerick.

So much for today. See you tomorrow.

Endless discussions tonight on whether the second goal Croatia had to concede was legit because there were different views on whether the referee was right when he decided to award penalty to the Brazilians. I would have thought that the third goal would have put an end to that discussion, but it went on the whole night. Goals are important.s

When i looked for interesting stuff around goals, i found a number of ‘kluge Sprüche’.

Here is another one:

Pádraig had the speech valve twice today, each time for longer than two house. And he sat in the wheelchair for more than four hours! These days, every day there is a noticeable and clear improvement – long may this continue.

Have you listened to the very first and still a little ‘raw’ version of Dream Boat? Maitiú wrote the song based on a story he read, and dedicated the song to Pádraig. Now, he is organising a session with all of Pádraig’s friends who can do a least a little. I really like the song and was humming away this afternoon when ‘it floated like a dream’!

It’s incredibly late, and I will have to get up in a few hours to catch the early morning plane to Hamburg. – So, here is to dreams that turn into goals, and then into achievements, here is to Pádraig!

PS: One of my favourite saying is: The Titanic was built by experts, the Arc by amateurs 🙂

Today’s (German) Music Tip
Los Ramblers, El Rock Del Mundial (1962). Not a German music tip tonight – but I thought the recording of the first ever ‘soccer song’ would be fitting for the day that’s in it.
What’s hot
Goals
What’s cold
Apathy
The German word/phrase/verse of the day
Wo ein Wille ist, da ist auch ein Weg!

Another long day in Dublin, trying to squeeze two days into one. My head is still turning and I am trying to get it sorted at least a little bit. It’s probably too late today to expect a more clarity. But I think I made some progress on An Saol. I talked to three different ‘parties’ and all were really really supportive. Follow ups in three weeks time, or so. We’ll keep the momentum going.

Twitter was alive with news about the Song. Check out this Facebook site! It’s really incredible!!!

There have also been some significant news about Pádraig: he is moving his tongue to the left, and to the right, when asked. And – when Pat saw some blue stuff in his mouth, she thought it was some kind of medicine. Turned out that it was a die that the speech therapist had used to check whether Pádraig is swallowing correctly, or whether some of the saliva is going down his windpipe. She checked it over two days – and found absolutely no die going down his windpipe. Subsequently, he will be able to use the speech valve twice a day, a few hours in the morning and a few hours in the afternoon. Absolutely fabulous news, and another step towards getting rid of the tracheostomy.

Have to go and rise with the sun tomorrow morning:)

I still don’t like being on a plane. You know, the push when the engines kick in? Your head bends back and this big piece of metal lifts you up in the air. You look down and slowly people disappear, cars get tiny, buildings turn into Lego estates. What used to be exciting now feels like the trip into the unknown. Cape Cod on my mind.

Loads of news: there are plans on the way to record a few songs and poems on a CD and then use that CD for a big fundraising push. The plans are just coming together and they already sounds amazing – different musicians and singers, different languages and a the involvement of many people who want to contribute. Work on the first song, Dream Boat, will begin tomorrow and hopefully be completed over the coming weeks. – The other bit of news is that I have started to talk to more people about An Saol, and so far they have all been enthusiastic about it. I had a long conversation with the NAI today, and will have three more meetings tomorrow. I think that it’s no longer a question of whether I should do this or not. It’s definitely a go.

Pádraig was exhausted today – but it’s not surprising: he sat out for four hours in the wheelchair and used the speech valve for two hours. Temperatures in Hamburg today reached 30oC, beyond what would feel comfortable. The day in the rose garden can’t be that far away anymore. Feeling, seeing, smelling something different from the hospital air will be really motivating for Pádraig!

Tired from the flight and a very full day of work. Time to call it a day!

It was another thunder and lightning day in Hamburg, and the second day of Pentecost: Pfingstmontag, a public holiday. As yesterday, the day started of grant, it was hot, a blue sky persuaded thousands of people to grab there barbies and make it to the parks, lakes, rivers, and canals of Hamburg. By 6pm, the skies had opened and what had started like a glorious day became a total washout. – Sounds like life.

Pádraig had two big changes today in his care: one of the therapists is passing on the baton to a colleague (Pádraig will see her from time to time), and one of his nurses is leaving the hospital altogether to work in home care. It is a strange feeling to have been in hospital for such a long time that you don’t just see staff going on holidays and coming back, but that you see people you have started to appreciate and like, leave altogether. Pádraig sat out in the wheelchair today, which is always great! He is doing so well when he is sitting up, his breathing gets better, and he is so much more able to ‘work’ with the speech valve (another 2 hours today).

80 years ago this June, a duck had his first appearance in the movies. 1934 was a difficult year for many, in Germany big changes were happening. The short film, in which the duck still only played a supporting role, has a moral: there is no food if you don’t want to work for it. Imagine a movie like this today. Even more interesting is the ‘localised’, translated and dubbed, version of the movie (link below).

Here is today’s most re-tweeted tweet (from Caoimhe): “@KantanMT @VistaTECglobal@medialocate @AlchemyAPI @welocalize@Kilgray @CNGL @translationswp@LocWorld Comhghairdeas! Fantastic @ForPadraig”

And here is a picture of the man who called me some months ago asking whether it would be alright to organise a fundraiser for Pádraig. Thank you!

Today’s German Music Tip
Die kluge kleine Henne (1934) – Donal Duck’s first movie appearance
What’s hot
Duck
What’s cold
Lightning
The German word/phrase/verse of the day
Frohes Pfingstfest! (Immer noch)

This morning, 49 days after Easter Sunday, was one of those mornings when you get everything ready to go to a park, preferably beside a lake or the sea, with a bit of shade. You’d take a blanket and picnic basket with you, some sunscreen, and you’d cycle out to that park with a couple of friends and family, looking forward to a great day. It’s Pentecost not just today, but also tomorrow – at least in Germany! It’s the day the Holy Spirit came down on the apostles. It’s also the Jewish (and much older) feast of Schawuot.

If it was the Holy Spirit who came down on Hamburg this afternoon, he came with thunder and lightning, and a massive downpour. Rather than sitting on their blankets, people used them as emergency covers until they had reached their cars. Literally thousands of people were sent running across the parks of Hamburg with their kids under one, and their picnic utensils under the other arm. Just after 3pm, the sky was so dark that it looked like the apocalypse was neigh. And then it started, the Donnerwetter, the Gewitter of massive proportions. – By the way, is there a word for ‘Gewitter’ in English?

Luckily, Pádraig was left unaffected by what was going on outside. He had a great weekend with four really nice friends from Dublin over for a visit. To be able to hear the familiar voices from home, to feel that his old friends are still with him and will continue to visit him, must be such a big reassurance for him. To know that so many people are thinking of him and visiting him, telling him of what is going on back in Dublin, remembering great times they had together, and making plans for better times ahead. Laughs and life.

This being the weekend, staff did not manage to sit him into the wheelchair, but he was back on the speech valve, and this time for about two hours. For Pádraig, this is like training. Using muscles he hasn’t used for a long time. Getting back to some degree of normality.

Today, I also got an email from an old colleague and friend, organiser of Localization World, who said that the fundraiser they organised, the Mountain Flag Challenge, managed to raise more than 10,000 euro, and that about 33 hiker made it to the top of the Djouce. It was a fantastic initiative and a great initiative! Thank you to all who put so much work into the organisation of the event, those who so generously contributed, and those who made it up to the mountain! He also sent a few more images that really show off the beauty of Wicklow!

Today’s German Music Tip
Johann Strauss II, Unter Blitz und Donner
What’s hot
Thunder and Pentecost
What’s cold
A quiet day in the park
The German word/phrase/verse of the day
Frohes Pfingstfest!

There have been four great friends here in Hamburg from across the sea from Ireland this weekend. They have taken some of their precious time they so badly need for their studies to buy a plane ticket and book into accommodation here to see Pádraig. Each time we meet, I feel that Pádraig, despite his accident, and despite the way he is at the moment, has been such a lucky person, having friends that others could only dream of.

He was off the oxygen again today, and two hours on the speech valve. For him, it’s like training his important muscles again.

So, they made it up to the ‘fortified height’, Dioghais or Djouce. The Mountain Flag Challenge today brought a group of people led by my friends from Kantan MT up into the wilderness of the Wicklow Mountains. When they talked to me some months ago and said that they had this idea of raising funds for ‘Caring for Pádraig’, I said that I was taken really back, that I could not believe their generosity, but that I also felt it very difficult to deal with such a situation. I said to my friends that it is, in a way, so much easier to give than to accept help, that these were very difficult times but that I did not want to become a victim that people would feel pity for. That so far it had mostly been Pádraig’s friends organising the fundraising. The answer was that they wanted to help. I told Pádraig today what my friends and colleagues had been doing today. I am sure he understood and probably felt a bit like myself. Helpless, but on the way out of it! – Here are the pictures from today’s trek up the Djouce, in what looks like typical Irish weather, a bit of sun and plenty of fog.

Thank you to all who prepared, supported, and, above all, got up this morning to climb the Djouce, Caring for Pádraig!

Say cheese – means you want a big smile for the picture you’re going to take of someone.

This evening, two of Pádraig’s friends were with him in the room, chatting away, laughing. They were having fun. And when they looked at Pádraig – he had a big smile on his face, a ‘cheesy’ kind of smile.

Tonight, I checked out the complexity of a smile, and this is what I found:

There are 43 muscles in the face, most of which are controlled by the seventh cranial nerve (also known as the facial nerve). This nerve exits the cerebral cortex and emerges from your skull just in front of your ears. It then splits into five primary branches: temporal, zygomatic, buccal, mandibular and cervical. These branches reach different areas of the face and enervate muscles that allow the face to twist and contort into a variety of expressions.

Some people say that there are 40 of these muscles involved in smiling. Others say it depends. What most agree on is that smiling is a quite complex operation.

Truth is, Pádraig has much to smile about: back out in his wheelchair, around two hours with the speech valve, and – above all – four lovely visitors to have lots of fun with!

Today is D-Day. 70 years ago almost 4,500 allied soldiers and between 4,000 and 9,000 German soldiers died. – Listening to the Irish news: 4 out of 5 new born babies died in ‘homes’ for unmarried mother.

Good luck and a big ‘thank you’ to all who will join tomorrow’s Mountain Flag Challenge!

Today’s German Music Tip
Not a music tip today, but two jokes from “Das Leben der Andern” (think NSA): Witz über Erich Honecker (2006)
What’s hot
Jokes
What’s cold
Straight faces
The German word/phrase/verse of the day
Treffen sich zwei Schnecken im Wald. Fragt die eine: „Warum hast du ein blaues Auge?“ Sagt die andere: „Ich war joggen – und da ist plötzlich ein Pilz aus dem Boden geschossen…“

Just as a matter of interest to the fantastic #RithPhádraig runners last Monday: your pictures on this blog were viewed 1,082 times! You did really good!

Back from the tyre changing job. From getting the car re-registered. From getting a new ‘green’ plaque with the new registration (and the old one taken out – which was the major hustle). From visiting my sister, brother-in-law, mother. From a long drive back up North. (You know, you can now drive from Algeciras in the very south of Spain to the North Cape without ever taking a ferry. Just. Drive. 56 hours. 5,635 km.)

During all this dealing-with-the-car business, I talked to a man working with a car dealer. He is from Bochum which is where Opel had a manufacturing plant since 1962. There are more than 3,000 people working in this plant. He told me that on 31 December of this year, the plant will close. Not only had his whole family been working there for generations, he said that he could just not imagine going home to Bochum – and nothing left there, no car manufacturing plant.

I studied in Bochum. In the 1970s, the government had decided that even the “Ruhrpott” with all its coal mines and steel factories needed a university. It was built on a green field site. The essence of functionality. About 16 huge, around 14 stories high concrete blocks of buildings around an Auditorium Maximum and the ‘mensa’, the student canteen. It became the university with the highest suicide rate. It was so anonymous that the student flats became hide aways for the Baader Meinhof Group’s sympathisers – at least that was what the police suspected who, at intervals, landed their helicopters with heavily armed special forces on the motorways leading to the college to check the cars for suspected terrorists. Student meetings were discussing Marx and Engels, and the mensa was serving ‘clear’ soup with vitamin bits – they didn’t even try to hide the source of the food by giving it a fancier name.

Pádraig today was back on his speech valve, ‘cycling’ for more than half an hour, and breathing most of the day without additional oxygen. He responded again with his feet, signalling ‘yes’ and ‘no’. There is a note in his room now telling staff how he is able to communicate. What a change from even just the beginning of the week! I feel that this is really another chapter. Physically very stable and much stronger than ever before since his accident, it really seems like as if he can now concentrate on how to communicate with his body and his surroundings. It’s fantastic to see and feel this happening. I think that when we look back to this early summer in years to come, we will remember how Pádraig started to connect with us again. The energy boosts he received from all his friends and families supporting him; the enormous good-will, compassion, and love – all of this must have made a tremendous impact.

When I think of it, talk about it, now write about the ‘old’ stories about Bochum and the college there – it’s like my father telling me about the war: too far away to have any connection with the ‘now’. Yet, today I would give a lot to pass more time with him and talk about his youth during the war. He was about Pádraig’s age when Germany started to loose the war, when they were beaten in Stalingrad, when he met my mother, cared for her when she was sick, and the world around them disappeared in smoke and rubble. Think about it: when my father was Pádraig’s age, the house we live here in Hamburg, and with it the blocks of houses around it, was destroyed that year. During the night of the 28th of July 1943, in just 43 minutes, 2,326 tons of bombs were dropped, creating a firestorm (a word that entered the English language for the first time as a result of that night) with hurricane-level winds. 42,000 civilians were killed…

Don’t forget about the next event in support of Caring for Pádraig: the MOUNTAIN FLAG CHALLENGE and
HIKE to DJOUCE to PLANT YOUR FLAG, this coming Saturday, 07th June!

Today’s German Music Tip
Herbert Grönemeyer, Bochum (1984)
What’s hot
Bochum
What’s cold
Opel closing
The German word/phrase/verse of the day
Mit dem Ivan ist nicht gut Kirschen essen.
(Google translated this for me as “By Ivan is not good to eat cherries.” which has nothing got to do at all with what the German sentence means!:)