The Irish Government announced today that they will follow the example of their Finnish counterparts and, from 2019, publish, on the internet, the income and corresponding tax paid of all people resident in Ireland on 01 November.

I just could not imagine what the reaction would be in Ireland to such an announcement. Yet, that is precisely what Finland does on 01 November, their “National Jealousy Day. Check out the report below.

Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York Times

• It’s Finland’s equivalent of the running of the bulls.

Each Nov. 1 — known as “National Jealousy Day” — everyone’s taxable income is made public at precisely 8 a.m., and Finns start poring over the numbers. Above, journalists at a tax office in Helsinki on Thursday.

Reporters look for fodder — Who might be circumventing taxes? How much did the country’s best-known pornographic film star make? — and ordinary people take stock of inequalities both nationally and in their workplaces.

While there are some complaints about the invasion of privacy, many Finns told us that the ritual baring of incomes promotes egalitarianism, deters cheating and can make it easier to ask for a raise.

Long conversations with carers about their employment. No walks outside despite the relatively dry weather. Firmly planning to get out tomorrow.

Some work in the morning, off to a meeting in DCU, training course with HSE, discussion with some of Pádraig’s carers, off to an event in the Helix commemorating Pádraig’s and our friend’s Louise’s life and contribution to the university, home at around 6pm. Tired.

Watching a food programme yesterday, I heard a dietitian saying that it is, of course, important what you eat, but it is, at least, equally important that you are happy. If you are not happy, bad stuff starts going on in your body which will, or at least has the potential, to eventually kill you. She said that with such a conviction that I was shocked. I never had heard anybody saying that with such conviction.

Giving kisses, hugging people, smiling – all these things will make your life better, healthier and longer.

I talked to someone this morning who told me that he would gladly accept the An Saol Foundation under their umbrella and as part of their organisation. I know this person would not have been interested in severe acquired brain injury, or in helping anyone with one, if there weren’t that funding.

The world is a strange place.

And today is the first day of Cúram Phádraig’s official day of operation, organising Pádraig’s personal care.

Over the past days, a few times, ‘assisted’ by swallowing a drink in some strange way, Pádraig managed to say ‘O’s, ‘ A’s, and ‘I’s once, twice or three times when asked. We have been hoping for his voice to come back and there have been signs that this will happen. Being able to say, in certain situations, these vowels a certain number of times is not a miracle, just another sign that this will eventually happen.

Have a look at the following list and try to spot the odd one out. The list is from a brain injury workbook. It’s not that difficult to do, but it’s also not that easy either, I think.

How did you do? Did you have to think about in some lines which one was the odd one out or were they all immediately obvious? I did not even know all the words and had to ask what a ‘poplar’ was and what was meant by ‘trotters’.

Pádraig got them all right. And he loved it. Whether it was easy of difficult, this kind of ‘game’ is, most certainly, exercising the brain. And that is, science and experience tells us, as important as exercising the rest of our bodies.

Half an hour a day. Minimum!

So keep it going!

There’s tons of scary stuff going on out there. Frightening stuff. I think everyone of us would have a story to tell were they asked to do so. One that would frighten the living daylights out of everyone listening.

Pádraig today carved a truly scary mask out of a real pumpkin.

“Health and safety” was suspended for a time as he took the knife and got to work.

It was one of his best friends who had brought the pumpkin to do the carving. It was so good, the interaction so lively, the way he found out from Pádraig how he would like the pumpkin to look like, the ‘yes’ and ‘no’ questions, the preferences, even the alphabet chart – it was so incredibly good, I stayed out of the room and let them get on between the two of them.

The result was truly scary! Even before the put a candle into the centre and set it alife.

Tuesday is swimming day. And swimming had been really good.

But nothing, nothing in comparison with the afternoon of scary pumpkin carving with his friend!

Not having to cook is great. Having dinner in great company and with great chat is near to impossible to beat.

We had both this evening. We went for dinner to the house of one of Pádraig’s really good friends, a family who have helped Pádraig and us along for many years. It was a really nice dinner. But what made the evening truly special was the exceptional company, the chat, the laughter, the normality of life, the being together and enjoying each other’s stories and opinions and laughter.

We often think things happen. We can try hard but, in the end, things are out or our hands. “Man makes plans, and God laughs.”

I often thought over the past five years, that God must have had a real great laugh looking at me making plans. Because all too often, I’ve felt totally and utterly helpless.

One thing though God has given us is free will.

And while he might have all sorts of plans for us, there’s no way she’d take that free will away from us. Meaning that *we* can decide to go right or to go left, to speak up or to stay silent, to love or to hate.

You might know “The Adjustment Bureau“. The last scene kind of explains what the movie is all about: taking charge ourselves, exercising our free will, blaming nobody else but us. It’s worthwhile watching:

Love moves everything. Even the ‘chairman’s’ plans!

A good friend sent me pictures this morning from way back when we were ‘young and fit’, he said. They were from the day of the Dublin marathon we both ran and finished, he in a very respectable time, myself happy to have finished it.

Earlier this year, I had registered for this year’s Dublin marathon because I feared it would sell out as it had for the past couple of years. When I registered, it seemed like I had plenty of time for practice and training. And then, during the summer, there was no time at all. In fact, the summer was so intense that when it was over, I got the flu for close to two weeks. Now, I have been coughing for two weeks with no chance of even walking the 42 km tomorrow.

Nonetheless, I went to the RDS to register and collect my racing bag. What a mistake. I had felt bad about not being able to get up and running before. But when I was there with hundreds of people being all excited about their big race tomorrow, it made me feel worse. Because I really wanted to do this tomorrow. Just that tomorrow won’t be my race day.

I’d love to say that there is a valuable lesson in this that I’ve learned. Something like that you have to accept that certain things will not be possible, no matter how much you would like to do them or how much you would like to see them happening.

The reality is, however, that there days I find that hard to accept.

I talked to a few families today about that recent RTÉ Investigates programme. They all told me about their own very similar experiences. And they all said that they don’t know how Patrick Fitzgerald manages to deal with the situation without going mad.

I’d say not being able to run the marathon would be the least of his worries. More likely, it would not be one of his worries at all.

I am grateful that there are people like Patrick Fitzgerald and his family around to raise awareness about the lack of appropriate care and rehabilitation for persons with a very severe acquired brain injury.

Pádraig cast his votes both in the referendum and in the presidential elections. The referendum vote was obvious choice for him and pretty straight forward. Almost too predictable to even mention. His vote in the presidential elections, by contrast, was more complex and involved the voting for his number one and for his number two candidate.

It was wonderful to see how normal it was for him (and all people in wheelchairs) to exercise their right to vote. This was inclusivity in action! There were even specially adapted booths and really helpful staff.

Well done, Pádraig!

Not in a hundred years… but once. Is cearta daonna iad cearta teanga agus tá cothrom na féinne tuilte ag lucht labhartha na Gaeilge, stated the member of the British House of Commons, Liz Saville-Roberts, a member of the Welsh party Plaid Cymru, yesterday in Irish, for the first time in a hundred years, in the British Parliament: “Language rights are human rights, and the Irish speaking community are entitled to equality”. She called on the UK Government to uphold its commitment to introduce an Irish Language Act if power-sharing institutions are not restored within six months.

Of course, they have not done it because they are dependent on the votes of the DUP from Northern Ireland who are vehemently opposed to the act. Human rights meet the pragmatics of realpolitik.

Tonight, Ireland’s best investigative TV programme, Primetime Investigates on RTÉ One, will be a programme on ‘troublemakers’ and how the official Irish health system deals with them. “Daring to challenge HSE’s comment, complaint service.”

One of the cases that will be reported on is that of “retired Dubliner Patrick Fitzgerald, a former trade union negotiator, (who) currently finds himself locked out of Cherry Orchard where his beloved wife Anne is a long-term resident in the Sycamore Unit.

Anne sustained a life-changing brain injury after slipping on ice nine years ago when putting out a wheelie bin. It is a random, catastrophic tragedy of such mundane origins, yet it has changed life irrevocably for the Fitzgerald family.”

I know Patrick and he has in the past attended meetings of the An Saol Foundation. He  is a gentle man who, supported by his daughter Frances, is doing his best to make sure that his wife receives the best possible care.

Following his complaints about lack of adequate treatment for his wife in Cherry Orchard, the HSE, instead of addressing and investigating the complaints, has now restricted visiting hours of Patrick to one hour, Monday to Thursday, and they place a security guard at the door during his visits.

By comparison: “The Irish Prison Service is committed to making visiting a prison as easy as possible for visitors. The Prison Service understands the importance of helping prison maintain and develop relationships with family and friends and is committed to enhancing where possible, and subject to appropriate security considerations, the visiting facilities and regimes for prisoners.”

After tonight, the programme will be available on the RTE Player on the web.

Pádraig is doing really well and out for a concert in St. Patrick’s College (DCU) while I’m staying in trying to get rid of my cold. I am miss spending more time with him but, at the same time, really do not want to pass on my cold and cough…

The German word for “centre” (Mitte) and a spiralling circle around it. Nothing pointing in any particular direction. It was a happy moment today when I saw this piece of art in the office of the man in charge of the Aftercare Centre in Augsburg, the (charitable) “Nachsorgezentrum” built by Mr Schuster, a few years after he had built the Therapiezentrum in Burgau to cater for persons with acquired brain injuries who had left hospital and early neuro rehab, but could not (yet) live by themselves or at home.

Check out the ingenious pieces of art, made from simple wooden palettes, in the centre’s workshop.

I had planned a visit to the centre for the past few years and this afternoon it finally happened. It is the most amazing purpose-built place to live in for persons with an acquired brain injury, with only one other similar centre being around in Germany, in Bad Tölz, in Germany’s deep South, deep Bavaria. And none I would know of in Ireland.

There is an ‘old’ part and a ‘new’ part, and both are outstanding. However, it is the new part that really shows off the skills, experience, and passion of the people (really: the person) who planned it – and who I met today.

I never knew why places I had visited previously always reminded me of nursing homes. There had always been a ‘clinical’ air about but I had not been able to put my finger on what had caused this, even when the people running them had the best of intentions to create a homely feeling. Today, all of a sudden, I realised why: because all those other places had long straight very functional corridors, and many of them had been painted in ‘calm’ brownish or clinical white colours. Here, there almost were no straight lines. the corridors were curved or the straight lines were interrupted by alcoves and open spaces – all in bright lively colours, with some funky ‘accessories’ interrupting and breaking up the otherwise bare walls.

Someone once told me (and must have told the designers of the centre in Augsburg) that you can never have enough space if you are using equipment and wheelchairs. There were not just art rooms, computer rooms, therapy rooms, quiet rooms and meeting rooms – there were also rooms to store equipment and a ‘garage’ to park (and recharge) all sorts of electrically powered cycles and chairs.

On both sides of the house was a really wide balcony, allowing a wheelchair user to go for a ‘walk’ and get a bit of fresh air – and even to pass another wheelchair user coming down the opposite direction. The house has living units each for about six persons having their own, large en-suite room and sharing a sitting area and an open plan, especially adapted kitchen. Each unit has been built so that it could, in the future and if needed, be used for other purposes involving persons requiring help and assistance.

The philosophy of the centre is that people do or get involved in everything a healthy person would be doing, such as cooking or washing their clothes. There is no pool in the house, so that people who could benefit from aqua therapy “have to” get out of the house and go to the pool – like a healthy person would do. This is also the reason why the building is very close to the city centre and all of its amenities, from public transport to shops and cinemas, but also a zoo and a small botanic garden.

What was equally exciting as visiting and seeing the centre at work, was the long conversation I had with the person who is in charge of the place, and to learn about his approach. For example, they have set up three different therapy praxis’ (physio, OT, and SLT) which not just serve the residents in the centre, but also persons in the community who require access to their highly specialised neuro rehab services. That way, they make the best use of their staff and, at the same time, generate an income for the centre (which helps them covering their running cost and paying staff).

Talking about running cost: we spent a good while going through a top-level cost estimate and reached the conclusion that the average amount currently paid for by the HSE for home care packages or to nursing homes would be sufficient to cover the daily rate we would have to charge in Ireland for a future An Saol Centre (with residential, respite and day units).

I have the feeling that, looking back in a few years time, I will remember this day as the day that plans for a permanent, purpose-built centre in Ireland for persons with a severe acquired brain injury took shape.

And here is what I missed while I was away: Pádraig went to the Hugh Lane Gallery which does not only have beautiful works of art (and some weird ones), but also a café offering beautiful cakes. Who could enjoy art on an empty stomach, I ask you? Sensible as he is, Pádraig decided “cake before art” and went for it in the proper order.

Just for those of you not familiar with the pieces exhibited in the Gallery: what looks like  an auld brown wall carpet from the sixties is, in fact, a piece of art by Sean Scully called “Light/Alba”. And the second piece on the pictures above , the one that might remind you of baby Jane, is, in fact, a piece by Niamh McCabe and it is, I’d never have guessed it, a dead painted bird. I have it on a reliable source that Pádraig was wondering whether Niamh killed the bird herself so she could paint it – or whether she had a cat who collected birds for her…

What do you think?

(You’ll have noticed that I had time on the plane back:)