Nicholas Quirke was enjoying his second, no, third, possibly his fourth wind on the evening of 15th May 2018. He had started his day on the 14th at 6.30am and his head had not touched a pillow since then. He was thankfully dragged into the day by a text conversation with Terry in Denver, he should have packed for his trip to Berlin but he had been reeling from the pace he was setting himself as his world continued to shift and change, along with experiencing new emotional heights and depths and opportunities to share and work through his interior world, which meant the mundane tasks were continually being shelved. But now the pressure of time was upon him he was able to regain some control and take the appropriate actions to ensure the journey to Berlin was a success. Nicholas took advantage of his industrious mood and the sunshine and cleaned the floors and carpets of the flat and did some laundry. A well deserved break presented itself with a tea in the Rotunda with his ex-wife to discuss their respective worlds and the impact of them on Harvey and Cole. Back at home he continued to make headway with tasks he had procrastinated on including liasing with Alistair to decide what theatre they would see when he joined himself and Kim in Berlin. He set off at 4pm for London and the Lyric Hammersmith for the next rehearsal for Fatherland. En route he received some great news about a friend which buoyed him up fot the rest of the evening and helped to inform his work on the songs and movement they were having to learn. The drive back to Brighton was surprisingly swift, but he still had to finish preparations for his trip and by 1am he realised it would be pointless to go to bed for 2 hours and he continued to sort everything out till it was time to go to airport. This was a routine now he was well acquainted with and was enhanced by his  visit to the priority airport lounge where he could finally relax in peace over a breakfast of fruit. Nicholas was very excited by this short sojourn in Berlin which was a city that had held much allure for him as a youth when he had eagerly absorbed the tarnished world of Christopher Isherwood through his novels an autobiographies. The ghosts of his youth and of Isherwoods 1930’s experience were already crowding in on him and colouring his life and his drive through the city to Kim’s venue gave him much time to reflect on where he would be led. It was wonderful to catch up with Kim who was working in Pankow and once they had said their hello and he had deposited is bag he set of to discover some of the delights of this city. He was as always prepared for disappointment so his initial problems on his arrival at the airport with the Uber that never appeared did nothing to dampen his spirit, neither did the fact that a significant part of the exhibition of the Judische Museum was closed. He anticipated that it would be hard to endure but he was not prepared for how overwhelming the simplicity of the exhibitions would move him. He counteracted these with a visit to Checkpoint Charlie which somehow appeared to be fun but also highlighted yet another example of mans inhumanity to man. It seemed a city with a strangely cruel history.  He met Kim to go back to their apartment but suddenly there wa a deluge and trying to get a Taxi proved to be difficult. He learned to his surprise, that Uber do not operate in Berlin, and he was at a loss to explain his experience with them at the airport.  The only option was a tram and unprepared they got soaked. Damp and wet they went for  delicious meal at a Vietnamese and then headed for the Deutsche Theatre. for The Man in the Holocene. This was a performance with English subtitles and they knew, from their front row seats that something was going wrong when it started and they couldn’t see the subtitles. How would they understand. Kim spotted them on the top of the proscenium arch and they were to close to the stage to see them. How they inappropriately laughed and moved back to the cheaper seats. Being able to read the subtitles to what turned out to be pretentious twaddle. It looked great though. They got home. chatted  and he wresttled once again with his Photographs  technology till finlly at 23.00 after nearly 41 hours of being awake Nicholas went to sleep.