9-15am Saturday morning. The wind is blowing strongly from the Southwest, a good 6 or 7. A severe storm is now forecast to cross us on Sunday evening so it might not be very pleasant out there at present. However, it’s just about as good now as its going to be for the next 48 hours or so. I had a little scare yesterday morning as I woke up with a cold, or at least what I thought was a cold. I am now so close to my second course of chemo coming up this Wednesday that a cold now would be disastrous. If I turn up on Wednesday with a cold or any kind of an infection or a temperature of 37.5 they will not treat me with the second course of chemo. Fortunately I have woken up this morning feeling fine again so the scare over for now. I have been getting just a tad cocky lately. I have made two trips to Port Erin chippie and eaten in. A dodgy game when you are on Chemo therapy as you cant afford to pickup any viruses or colds that might be doing the rounds.

Last night I had a couple of beers on my own and listened to a bit of telly whilst firing off text messages to my young niece Beth over in Wigan and local friends.

I have been thinking about money lately and wondering was I happier as a kid growing up on the Janet’s Corner housing estate in Castletown back in the 1950-s and 60’s, where money was a scarce commodity. I guess the answer is, I was no poorer then than I am now. You don’t feel like a pauper when everyone around you is in the same boat. When everyone is skint, money doesn’t really matter. A dollop of it came around every Friday which was pay day. Saturday’s and Sunday’s were fine, then, you spent Monday to Thursday clinging to the weak and breaking branches of the money tree until Friday came round once again. Money and jobs are now much more plentiful than they once were. How many times did our parents have to remind us that money didn’t grow on trees! It didn’t, but now it comes out of a hole in the wall.

When I was a kid the corner shop use to give us tick, which was really a form of credit for the working classes. When the idea caught on amongst the movers and shakers, they simply coined a more fashionable phrase and called it credit. I remember Jack who ran the shop on the promenade telling me this story. A young girl came in to his shop clutching a note. The note read. “Jack, can you let me have a loaf of bread, a quarter of tea and a tin of beans and I will pay you as soon as my husband comes home for his tea?” “Well Tom” said Jack. “That was 30 years ago and he still hasn’t turned up for his tea yet!”

Of course we all need money and, thankfully most of us have more of it now than our parents had. It is however, easy to overlook some of the tings money can’t buy. It can’t bring loved ones back! It can’t buy you true happiness or, change who you are.

A wise old boatman by the name of George Squires once tried to teach me the meaning of money through these words.

Money will buy you books, but not brains!

Money will buy you medicine, but not health!

Money will buy you food, but not an appetite!

Money will buy you a bed, but not sleep!

Money will buy you a house, but not a home!

Until next time then, Tom