Head is coming down towards the keyboard when I intent to type. I’ll leave it for today with the news that Pádraig continues with his spelling efforts. Thee friends and myself will be ‘swimming for a mile” in the *finals* of the relay race at 1pm.

We are working with Pádraig on spelling words. We ask him things and encourage him to respond with words he spells by pointing out letters of the alphabet organised in quadrants.

Today, for example, we asked him how he was feeling. He pointed out a ‘G’, followed by an ‘O’, and another ‘O’, which is when we guessed the last letter.

It seemed as if what we were teaching Pádraig was working.

Just being back from Blanes, we then showed Pádraig the holiday snap below and asked him whether he knew where that place was.

He said ‘yes’ and started to spell ‘B’ — ‘R’ — which is when we were about to stop the exercise, but decided to let him finish. He continued: ‘A’ — ‘Y’.

While we had thought he had got lost in the chart, he was, of course, perfectly right. The beach on that picture looks exactly like the beach in Bray, just outside of Dublin.

Turned out that we were not teaching anything to anybody here. We were being taught a really important lesson by Pádraig about how we are approaching things, about our assumptions, about our perceptions. Pádraig had no idea that we had taken that picture. We knew we had taken it, we had shown it to friends, we had commented on it. But never with him. And in this situation, and from his perspective, what we were doing when we asked him whether he knew where that place was — was playing the “Which place is shown on this picture”-game that he was happy to join.

He was right. We were wrong. — And he taught us, and we learned from him a really important lesson. Think twice when making any assumptions based on your very own frame of mind during your communications with others.

I took a break from running today and joined a brilliant swim team taking on Swim Ireland’s corporate challenge to swim a (relay) mile with some friends. I hadn’t been in the water for months and was so proud that I didn’t drown during the swim. While we didn’t quite win, we believe that we made it into the final and have been monitoring our email all night as we expect an urgent communication from Swim Ireland inviting us to compete in the grand finale of this highlight in the official Irish Swimming calendar. In the meantime: thank you to my friends-in-swimming who didn’t show any sign of embarrassment for having a lame duck in their team. Fair play!

Finally: Ba mhaith linn ár mbuíochas a ghábháil le clann ó Choláiste Eoin as ucht an bhronntanais fhláthúil a bhronn siad ar Phádraig inné. Cuirfidh sé go mór lena shaol.

We got up at 4am Irish time, had a 2 1/2 hour bus journey to Barcelona Airport, and were stopped in our tracks by a lady at the check-in who decided we had to pay for Pádraig’s case containing his supplies – something that had never ever happened ever before. While I stood back, having got very close to a melt down, we established via the sales desk that if we could supply a doctor’s letter stating that Pádraig required special supplies, they would carry his bag free of charge.

For a moment I thought we were in Germany. Usually, it is Germans who need a letter stating the obvious. (No offence intended to my German country fellows:) (And no offence intended either to any Spanish reader:) We have such a letter but didn’t carry it as we never had to show it – even in Germany!!

So we paid 50 euro for Pádraig’s bag. And this afternoon, following a tweet I posted about this, Aer Lingus kindly agreed to refund the 50 euro but reminded me to carry that letter next time! – Fair play to Aer Lingus who, it must be said, have always gone out of their way to make Pádraig’s travels as easy and pleasant as possible.

Having boarded the plane, we stood on the tarmac for over an hour waiting for the rain in Dublin to clear. The easiest part of the journey was the flight. Having arrived in Dublin, we waited for another hour to get off the plane. The special assistance crew at Dublin Airport must have been incredibly busy this lunch time! Very tired, very stressed and very much later than planned, we grabbed our bags from the belt, got into the car and drove home. Only to discover, that one of the bags we had grabbed was not ours.

So I brought it back hoping we could do a straight swap. Unfortunately, however, the owner of the bag we had picked up, had not picked up our bag. So while they were happy to get their bag back, ours is currently filed as missing.

Are we happy to be back home? We are. While travel is good and full of adventures, it’s good to be back home again (don’t klick on this link unless you are ready for some country and western from John Denver:).

Are we missing the sun, the soft warm wind on our faces, the walks, the mediterranean, the tapas, the people filling the walk along the sea, the noise of the sea at night….? Of course.

I must be honest. I don’t understand people and organisations who promise funding, who promise signatures on agreements, who promise to get back to you  – and than have to be reminded again and again and again, have to be asked about what is going on and sometimes get back and sometimes don’t. I was thinking: I have some dignity and self-respect left. I don’t need to get down on my knees and be grateful to be dealt with at least business-like by people and organisations that are being financed by me and my family. I was thinking: It’s ok to deal with hustle, I know maybe better than others that life is not hustle-free. But there is hustle that could and should be easily avoided. We all have enough of it as it is.

It felt like just another day in paradise today with blue skies, almost perfect temperatures and not a bother around.

Even the ‘hole in the wall’ looked like the flight deck of an A380. It offered withdrawals in 16 languages, worked contact-less, and had a build-in video camera to record who was taking the money.

We found out that Blanes is part of the Republic of Catalunya. And above all, Pádraig was really really happy. Being outside most of the day, eating all this wonderful food and trying out different kinds of drinks – we’ll miss it.

Because today was our last day. We’ll have to get up again in the middle of the night to catch a very early bus that will carry us over more than two hours to the airport. We’ll be part of what they call in Spain, following Semana Santa, ‘operación retorno’.

This is the day when the most unlikely things become reality. A bit more than 2,000 years ago, Jesus had disappeared from his tomb and, as his followers found out later, risen from the dead. Love will never die. It can suffer, cause incredible pain, make you despair. But just when you think it has died and you’re alone, it turns into the biggest miracle and makes you realise that it will always be with you. No matter what.

I know, this sounds cheesy… but there you are. I haven’t grasped the whole story of the passion and resurrection, I’m working on it because in my mind it is the most amazing, most inspiring ‘story’ around.

Today being Easter Sunday, we went to see yet more processions. In Blanes, there was just one. And it was pretty short. BUT – it had a surprise in store for us.

First the typical cofradía, all men, some in socks (used to be bare feet in the old days), all suffering under the weight of the statue of the risen Christ.

 

And then – mother Mary, carried not by another typical cofradía, but by one that had only women members.

 

Not sure whether these really short videos capture that incredible difference between how the two groups handled their task. Watching it from close by was quite something!

We discovered more stuff about Blanes. A shop closed for days now owned by someone called Puigdemont. A statue of Carl Faust, a German who lived in Blanes in the last century and founded the towns botanic gardens. And arroz negre, black rice, with strange creatures on top of it.

Pádraig is really having a great time. Enjoying the food, especially the gigantic and relaxed breakfasts, the walks, the sounds, the fresh air, the tiny shops in the town, the walks along the seafront.

And I ran 28k this morning. Heading off at 6am. Because it was still pitch black outside, my only option was to ran along the Blanes seafront which is well lit. 4 times. I really had doubts about whether I would be able to convince myself to get up that early and complete that long run. Maybe it was the day that’s in it that made the unlikely thing possible!

Remember that elderly lady in the street the other night when we were waiting for the procession commenting on Pádraig’s “big feet” — and his big feet only? Did I mention she told us about this fabulous shoe shop in the Carrer L’Hospital in Barcelona, selling comfortable shoes in all sizes?

Guess what! Today we went to Barcelona on a day trip and, by accident, found ourselves in the Carrer de l’Hospital. We asked in another shop for a shoe shop. And just a few metres down the road there it was: Calzados Gueisal.

We weren’t disappointed. Although the shop was really small, it had the most amazing selection of shoes – in all sizes. It didn’t take Pádraig very long to make up his mind about his favourites. Blue suede.

Isn’t it funny how, at times, things you never expected at all at all, all of a sudden start to happen?

This was the day of full scale disaster. The man who was to save the world died on the cross following a day of the most vicious torture. He had questioned the existing power structures and values. Those benefiting from these structure, those whose power was threatened, did the thing they do in those situations. No surprises here. Problem solved.

I am sure that none of them had ever envisaged that more than 2,000 years later, a “Holy Father”, head of a 1.2 billion people church, would preside over a solemn commemoration of this day of the passion that would be televised around the world. And that ‘cofradías’ in Spain would carry ‘pasos’ through the streets depicting the events of this day. (I took the pictures from the telly that was broadcasting the procession from Malaga.)

It was the man on the cross who changed the world. It is his words that survived the centuries. – I’ve been thinking today what his response would be to those pressing questions we are dealing with today and how he would see the catholic church itself.

So what have we been up to on this day of high drama?

Following a glorious breakfast, more like a lunch, we went out to meet these roman soldiers again. Turned out they have kids that do the daytime job. Some even have nose rings, studs and long hair under those fancy helmets. Though still no sign of the man they’ve been looking for yet…

At lunch time we had a visit from two very good friends who had moved to Barcelona some years ago and who came over to Blanes for the afternoon for a chat. We had brilliant afternoon in great company.

We’ll be off to Barcelona for the day tomorrow morning, just for a walk down the Ramblas and memory lane…

This is Semana Santa, holy week, and almost every town in Spain has their processions. Every night of the week. They tend to be really serious and a bit dark in Castilla, slightly exaggerated in Andalusia, and – as we saw tonight in Blanes – maybe a bit too matter of fact in Catalunya. It was this band of Roman soldiers marching through every street of the town centre, pretty swiftly, probably in search of Jesus. When he, if I remember correctly, was having dinner with his friends.

 

The random pictures below show a little of what today was like: a full moon at night on our way back home. Empty plates in our favourite Blanes Bar where the waiter had spent the first four years of his life in Düsseldorf and is quickly becoming our best friend, proudly practicing his German with us. Barrels of ordinary wine, sweet desert wine and absinthe in a supermarket that has tons of plastic bottles ready to be passed on to customers who want to buy that stuff by the litre, starting at €1.45. Lunch under blue skies in a beach restaurant. And, finally, a note around the hotel telling guests that they will have to pay if the ink from their new tattoos should destroy the bed linen; we haven’t seen anyone with a tattoo in the hotel so far, but maybe clientele changes in the summer months?

Amongst all the excitement of today, the best moment was when an elderly lady with a  yellow ribbon (showing her support for the catalan prisoners) got to talk to us during the Roman Soldiers’ march through the town. She was really taken by Pádraig – but, in a very strange twist, exclusively by the size of his feet. Size 50! Unbelievable. But no reason to despair. There is this shop in Barcelona…. and then she gave us directions I’ve sadly forgotten. It was so nice, so normal, and so unexpected. The size of Pádraig’s feet. In terms of making contact with Pádraig, this was a resounding first!

Temperatures went up to 30o celsius today in Spain, apparently. Up here in the North, though, almost 100km North of Barcelona, in Blanes, they hardly reached 20o.

In other words: it was a scorcher.

After the usual into and out of the airplane craic, we had to wait a few hours in Barcelona airport to catch the wheelchair-friendly bus that was going to take us on our 2 hour journey along the scenic route of the Costa Brava to Blanes. And look at that bus! Out of nowhere came a ramp that lifted Pádraig up in the air and across to his seating area in ‘normal’ bus where they just had removed a couple of seats to make space.

The best thing about the day was our room in this hotel that is separated from the med only by a road that you don’t even see from the window. Check it out. We don’t have just ‘sea view’, with have double sea view!

After a nap on arrival (after all we had got up at 4am to catch that flight), we went for a walk and ended up in one of our favourite bars.

For 20 euro, the three of us had tapas and a few beers making us some of the happiest people on the planet. Pádraig so enjoyed the walk along the promenade, the sun, the people, the food and the sip of beer. It was fantastic!

Finally, and to top it all up, guess from where I am writing tonight? Correct! Sitting on the top floor balcony overlooking the promenade, the lights of the town, and the mediterranean!

 

We’ll be getting up at 4am tomorrow. That’s the bad news. The good news is that we’ll be going to the airport to catch a plane to the sun.

We’ll be heading off to Spain, North of Barcelona, for Easter. As we always (well, almost always) did. What if not that is normality? When we were told about this life not worth living, this ‘intolerable’ life. this life not worth any further ‘investment’ because there was no ‘return’ on that investment? I mean, eat your heart out….

In the meantime, I had this thought. It’s not really funny. But it is curious.

You all know about the waiting lists for everything in the health service, even – or especially – for children. Over a year for scoliosis treatment, more than two years for speech and language therapy. Often more than 2 years for rehab.

Now, the current proposal for legislation on abortion in Ireland is that it will be legal within 12 weeks – if the Irish people decide to take out of the Irish constitution the 8th amendment in a referendum to be held this coming May.

My thought was: how on earth will the Irish health service deliver abortion services within 12 weeks? If they cannot deliver the most basic health care, life saving, services without year-long waiting lists?