If I can do this, I can do anything. I couldn’t believe how energised I felt this morning after a very good friend of mine and I had got out of the sea after a (*very* short) swim at the 40 foot. It was brilliant.

In the meantime, Pádraig discovered a new exercise: stretching out his leg and rotating his foot to the rhythm of the music.

My New Year resolution is to do this every day: getting up early. Energised.

His is to share his strength with us.

We’re ready for the Dreamboat.

Just before the year ends and the new one begins, I want to thank you, also and especially on behalf of Pádraig, for your support in the past year and wish you all the best for the New Year. It’ll be a magic one. One when the Dreamboat will go down that stream, despite any obstacles that might be in its way, with thousands of Dreamboaters joining from around the world helping us with their energy and love to move it along to where there is justice and inclusion, not leaving anybody behind.

I’ve started to think in New Year’s resolutions. There is the usual stuff: get more regular sleep, exercise regularly, eat well, be kind to people. But I wonder: isn’t there anything new? Something I haven’t tried before? I’ll keep thinking. And let me know if you can think of a good resolution that’s a bit out of the ordinary…

Would you have any good or strange New Year’s resolutions?

Pádraig has become much more active. There has been a pronounced change in his movement. He doesn’t sit still in his chair anymore. He also moves around in his bed. Both for himself and for us this is something quite new and something we will have to learn about. It’ll require a big chance in mind for everybody dealing and being with Pádraig.

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Bob was wrong.

This morning I had one of these moments when I listened to a song that I had listened to a million times. It was performed by Irish group The Kilkennys, not by the man himself. The song was Blown’ in the Wind.

Dylan asks a lot of the essential questions, like how many roads must a man walk down before you can call him a man?  – All the answers to these questions are, according to Bob,  Blownin in the Winds.

Well, they are not. People do not have to die, canon balls don’t have to fly, and I can hear people cry. We know what the answers are to make this happen, they are not blowing in the wind.

I am still in awe at Pádraig’s ability to use the exercise equipment in Tolka Park. It was another one of these moments when I realised that it is mostly us who are limiting his experiences by our (lack of) expectations.

We had tried this push-out machine with him by helping Pádraig to hold on to the handle bars and had then moved the bars with the weights out to help him get a feel for how this works. And as Pádraig was sitting there for a few seconds while we were getting ready to go, he all of a sudden started to push the bars out – not just once, but several times. We had just not given him enough time before to try and do this by himself.

The weather here is great for walks. Hardly any wind and very mild temperatures. So we went to Dollymount and walked along the man built sea barrier out to the statue of Mary. The place was jammed with people, all of us enjoying the fresh sea breeze.

For a few days, we’ve been eating turkey and ham, and by the looks of it, supplies will stretch over another couple of days. – Tomorrow, I’ll look up a turkey & ham curry recipe!

Dublin Corporation have set up an exercise area for people, including those in a wheelchair. Over the Christmas days, Pádraig tried it out for the first time.

It was incredible. Something I never had expected. (Though I should have.) Now check out the following.

We had helped Pádraig to use this equipment and were about to leave when Pádraig started to use it by himself. He pushed away 5kg on each side. Not just once, but at least half a dozen times.

How was your Christmas? There must be more to it than what just happened. At least that’s how I see it. If I think, on ‘normal’ days, that I am not in control of my life, well, Christmas completely takes over. There is an extraordinary amount of cleaning up, cooking, eating, cleaning up, cooking, eating, cleaning up, …. to be done. No time to sit back and relax. To just do nothing.

All mixed up with emotions, many and big emotions. Not always easy to handle. Most of it is looking back, remembering. Most of the memories are sad. People I used to spend time with over Christmas.

Today was better than yesterday. Things went a little more relaxed. Turkey was cooked and ham was boiled. It was just a matter of re-heating.

They interviewed people on the radio today about famous people who died over the past year, with quotes by those famous people. One of them said about life that it is an obligation to make an impression on the world. Another one said that helping other people is to see the face of God in them.

Christmas Day, Christmas., It’s a time when memories of times past turn up out of nowhere.

Happy Christmas!

The turkey is in the fridge, together with the ham, waiting to be cooked bright and early tomorrow morning. For hours. Tonight we had a nice dinner, tapas style, Tonight, Santa will come (so we hope) tonight and leave the presents out for everybody to enjoy. And, “!of course The Germans got their presents a little bit earlier than us:)

It’s the fourth Sunday of Advent today, just a few days before Christmas. It’s one of the busiest shopping days of the year in Ireland. Strange thing for a German who would traditionally have got into a more relaxed reflective pre-Christmas mood. At the same time, what has to be done has to be done…

This white shirt, made in Bangladesh, costs 6 euro and I discovered it today when I was doing my Christmas shopping. That’s less than half a packet of cigarettes. In other words: if I still smoked a packet a day, I could buy 2 shirts a day for the same price. Even more astonishing: If I would post this shirt in a package to me friend in Bangladesh, it would cost me 28 euro with ordinary post, four and a half time the price of the shirt itself. Assuming the shirt has about a dozen buttons, these could cost me, if I bought them on the internet, nearly as much as the shirt. In other words, it would almost be worthwhile buying the shirt and, to get my money back, cutting off the buttons and selling them online.

I don’t understand how or, more importantly, why this works. I know that the shirt is probably not being shipped to Ireland in a package with An Post. I know that workers in Bangladesh earn less than workers in Dublin. And I know that large scale manufacturers get better prices on raw material. But still…

We have started to prepare a plan for action for the next week or so. We will eat healthy, sleep as much as we can, drink loads of fluids, and go for a walk every day. There will be days without carers and the house will be much quieter. And in a strange way, we will have more time for ourselves and with Pádraig. It will be nice. And relaxed. And peaceful. As Christmas should be.

(Just in case you were wondering: I did not buy the shirt. It seemed wrong. very badly wrong.)