Its 9-35 A.M on Sunday, February 24^th. I have woken up feeling really good once again. Yesterday was a very good day for me. I managed to walk all the way from Poulson Park to the waterfall and back. This is the most I have ventured since my cancer broke out just a few short months ago.

It's quite amazing how your life can be changed or turned on its head in just a very short time no matter how much long planning you might do. My daily routine up until about mid November was to rise every morning round about 5 a.m. Fetch a pot of tea up to the bedroom, return to bed and listen to the breakfast news on the TV or radio. My wife Barbara would wake around 6 and by 7, both Barbara and I, along with Skipper our Collie, would be bouncing around Langness. We would drive out to the car park and then walk down the Derbyhaven side, around the lighthouse and back to the car park taking about 45 minutes. I can think of no better way to begin your working day than with a brisk walk around somewhere such as Langness. I have been totally blind since the age of two. That was my first dice with cancer. The doctors removed both my eyes to successfully prevent the cancer from spreading. I may well have lost my eye sight at that point, but I'm sure I gained my vision.

Up until 5 years ago, I had been employed at the Royal bank of Scotland for 10 years. My guide dog Escort would travel with me to work from Castletown to Douglas every day. Barbara worked at Zurich International and so we would drive to work in the car. Barbara would drop me outside Zurich and I would walk along Athol Street to the bank on Victoria Street. Escort was the last of my 4 guide dogs, and when he eventually grew too old to work and retired, I decided he would be the last, at least for now. Shortly after Escort retired as a working dog, I left the bank and setup my own business, Island Office Minder. I ran this business from a converted bedroom at home. It was and still is a telephone answering and message service. As I was now working from home, I no longer had the need for a guide dog so Escort took on the role of a pet golden retriever and, every morning we would stroll around Poulson Park which now served as my half mile walk to work. At 15 years of age, poor old Escort eventually hung up his doggy clogs and very reluctantly went to meet up with the boss.

I was brought up a strict Roman Catholic by the sister's of Charity at St Vincent's school for the blind in Liverpool. Although I lived and breathed very healthy portions of religion as a child, religion just never really grew on me, at least not the conventional sort. I simply never felt close to God in a church. I am not even sure who God is or where he might dwell. I dismiss nothing though, and I am fairly open minded about the whole thing. It seems to me that God is many different things to different people. As far as I am concerned, one day I will meet up with the boss. When that day arrives I will simply accept my appraisal and fall in to line.

I am 54 years old now and I have so much to be grateful for. Yes this is my second dance with cancer. However, they are not playing the last waltz yet and who knows what tomorrow might bring or even the next hour. Little things can, and do make such a big difference to our lives. A simple little change of routine to our daily lives can make a vast difference. I have always had a dog and couldn't imagine life without one, so when Escort moved hopefully to pastures greener and Meg our other pet Collie died last year, the period of dog less ness was to be short lived. We sort of stumbled across Skipper on a farm in Kirk Michael. He was by then a one year old rejected sheep dog and we loved him at 1st sight. Of course Skipper is no guide dog; in fact he is as wild as a mountain hare, none-the-less that hardly mattered. Now that I had left the bank and was running Island Office Minder, my early morning walks had changed. Both Barbara and I would now be out on Langness at 7am with Skipper bouncing along beside us, behind us, ahead or wherever. Langness is a beautiful place and you need to use a great deal more you're your eyesight to appreciate it. What better way is there to begin your working day by walking on a carpet of lush grass, breathing the fresh salt air of Castletown bay? Nothing beats the sound of the skylarks, oyster catchers, lapwings and the singing seals bathing on the rocks in the early morning sunshine. If 45 minutes of this did not put you in a good frame of mind for a days work, then nothing ever will. I am so lucky that my wife Barbara enjoys the same pleasures in life as I do. She will one day probably paint the scene I have just described. That painting will probably end up hanging on someone elses wall, but it matters not, the memory remains, only the painting will move on, and for me the painting lives on forever as I can recall the sounds and the memories of walking on Langness whenever I like. A couple of months ago I wondered if I might ever walk there again. I am only a few days in to chemo and the strength to walk again has been restored to me, at least for now. If this is not meant to last then no worries as I can be back on Langness in my mind at anytime, in a twinkle. In the greater scheme, life is but a mere twinkle. Today will pass in no time at all, and tomorrow is a gift that might be granted, but I don't take it for granted.