It is 8.45 a.m. and I have just returned from walking two laps of Poulson Park with Skipper. In about half an hour, I will take a wander down through Golden Meadow Mill. I have woken up feeling better today. I have started to feel a bit breathless over the last 3 days or so and was getting a bit worried that the cancer might be returning. I started taking antibiotics yesterday and I do feel better this morning so hopefully we have had no more than a chest infection.

It is a lovely spring morning today and I am grateful that I am able to enjoy it. An old family friend called me this morning and told he has decided to retire. He is one of those people you think will never retire, just like my dad who was still working at 80. My Dad's sudden death has made our friend think a little more deeply about life and, I guess not to take things for granted. Better to enter into retirement with a little health than none at all. How many times have you said to yourself, "What would we do without so and so?" or, "We just couldn't manage without him or her"? I have many times and of course on each occasion I have been wrong. The graveyards are indeed full of people the world thought it could not do without and no doubt, cradles are full of emerging indispensables. Mind you its not just people that sometimes appears to be indispensable. Places can seem like that too.

I have just walked round Poulson Park. The sun shone all the way round and there was only me in the park. Shortly I will walk through the old Mill. The walk will be peaceful and idyllic. I have often woken up in some grotty places. Many folks have woken up in large cities this morning, stumbled out of bed and jumped on a bus or train and staggered into work in some grinding factory or stuffy office. They will do like wise this evening. They won't even see the sun go down. I'm sure they won't be unhappy as they don't know any different. I was lucky enough to be born in a beautiful place. I can walk in perfect safety all day. Sure I have had a few setbacks lately, however, when you look at the whole package, life has not been too bad to me.

All of us on this Island are only a heart beat away from a riverbank, a meadow, a field or a beach. On last night's Drive Programme on Radio 5 Live , I was listening to a guy whose job was collecting needles, syringes and, other rubbish from the banks of the River Trent in Nottingham. I have just returned from a walk along the Silverburn and had I collected rubbish, I would have had enough space in the turn up of my trousers. I leave you today with a poem. I always hated being away from home, however having to leave home at least meant that I experienced the joy of returning.

This poem is called the City Clerk. It was handed to Tommy Mylchreest on Castletown square back in the 1930's. A man approached him, handed him the poem and disappeared. We do not know who he was or is but I guess he was the City Clerk himself.

THE CITY CLERK

The wind sings in the city, he breathes the breath of home.

Bright spray from the Atlantic, he blew beside my home.

Still sunshine on blue harbours, green glens and flowing streams.

I see them in my ledgers, I hear them in my dreams.

The lazy Island hay-carts, with sway top heavy loads.

The crimson Fushias cringing, on the dusty Island roads.

The cushag and the Daisy, and the cloudless Island sky.

All these I shall remember until the day I die.

The wind sings in the city, oh how the spring is fair.

From Andreas to Bradda, from Colby to Lezayre.

And how the gorse seems golden, on a summer's afternoon.

The done moth in the twilight and the round red Island bloom.

And how the sea in autumn, is sparkled by the breeze.

And young loves go a courting, between the rowan trees.

He sings a song of beauty, in everybody's ear.

But only I remember, and only I can hear.

The wind sings in the city, the west wind from the sea.

Come home again he's singing, come home again with me.

Langness has still its heather, and Peel its fishing fleet.

Why stay a moment longer, in this drab city street.

There's beauty for the asking, there's laughter and there's friends.

Romance that comes and lingers, and love that never ends.

The cushag and the daisies, and the gentle Island rain.

They're waiting, oh how they're waiting, for you to come again.

Tom Glassey. On the banks of the Silverburn