Good morning people. I’m back on yet another flying visit. I will return to the Wirral tomorrow morning, however, this time only for a couple of days. If all goes well I will return to the Island on Tuesday night with treatment complete.

Well it has been another fascinating week on the Wirral. On this last trip I was accompanied by Ray and Pauline Cregeen from Port St.Mary. Barbara joined us on the Tuesday along with Skipper. Skipper did not collect an ASBO on the Wirral and I am at a loss to understand why his behaviour was so much better over there than it is here. The sea shore is only about 50 yards from our caravan and it is mainly unpopulated. Skipper had miles and miles of mostly empty shoreline to frolic about on. The Mersey tides are not to be messed with though. The speed of the tide in the Mersey reaches about 6 knots or 7 miles per hour. When the tide is at full flow, the Mersey rises by 9 feet in just one hour.

Well of course I cannot complete this blog without having my weekly pop at the Super seacat, now renamed by one of hour American readers as the sea slug. Thank you Cheryl in Washington State, you have it about right. Well having boarded at about 7am last Monday, we left on time at 7.30. The arm rest on my seat was broken in two, and when I pulled down the flip table from the back of the seat in front of me, it still had the remains of a meal from a previous trip. I then pulled out the newspaper from the seat pocket and handed it to Ray saying, “Well at least you don’t need to buy a newspaper”. He took the paper and replied, “Well if you missed the news on April 12^th I shall read it to you.” If the maintenance down below is anything like the general upkeep up on top, it is little wonder she keeps conking out. I will return to the Sea slug later in a slightly more positive vane regarding our trip home.

Monday and Tuesday of last week saw the last of my radiation treatment to my head. I was not sorry to see the end of that awful mask on Tuesday. I have not been as lucky with the radiation treatment regarding side effects as I was with chemotherapy. The side effects of radiotherapy have left me pretty much wiped out. My skin dried up and peeled away from my forehead, ears, face and back. The worst part has been my eyes. The skin peeled away on my eye lashes and because I have glass eyes, the glass eyes rubbing on the dried up eyelashes was and still is extremely painful.

Anyway enough of that, I have been looked after by the most fantastic people on the planet. My radiographer’s are Sima from Iran and is simply the most wonderful kind and caring lady you are ever likely to meet. Andy is from Sidney, he always seems to have that little bit of extra time to talk and reassure me of what is happening. Cathy who from Telford but now dwells in Liverpool is another star of this fantastic team. It is a shame you have to have cancer to experience the fantastic care of these people. I am sure there is no place on Earth as caring and reassuring as Clatterbridge hospital.

On Tuesday I will return home for good hopefully, and with a lot less baggage than I went out with as hopefully my lung cancer will be in the Clatterbridge bin. We have now given up the caravan and on Monday night we will stay in a hotel in St.Helens. I will not be sorry to see the back of the caravan.

As caravans go, there is nothing wrong with it, and it meant that we could have Skipper out there with us. None-the-less, three weeks in a caravan is quite long enough for me. The rain on the Wirral this last two weeks has been horrendous. The noise on the roof meant you could not hear either TV or radio. The grass that the caravan sits on has been a lake. The site itself though is fine. It is a little community within itself. Everyone helps each other out. Those of you have been following the blog from way back will recall a story I told about a trip I made to Manchester back in 1981. I told of how I entered a pub called the Nellie. A bit of a scrap broke out and some guy turned a fire hose on all the customers in the pub, including yours truly. We all left the pub soaked to the skin including the pub landlady. You can imagine how gob smacked I was when I related this story to the lady in the caravan next to mine. She listened to my story then, once she had recovered her composure she gasped, “My name is Margaret, and I was the landlady of the Nellie on that night.” Talk about it being a small World! Margaret now runs the pub on the caravan site.

Another wonderful surprise this week was to meet up with my old friend Little Robbie. I last saw Robbie back on 1974 when he was sacked from Davis Charlton for letting other workers know about his secret pay rise. I along with just about everybody else was sacked a couple of years later. Robbie now lives in North Wales and he drove all the way out to spend a couple of hours with us. It was fantastic to meet up with him once again, and hopefully I will pop over to see him once this little project in life is complete.

On Tuesday, I met up with another blog reader from Chester. I have written about Anna, our doctor in Chester. Well on Tuesday myself, Ray and Pauline met up with Anna and took a river cruise along the Dee on the ‘Jackie’. It was a wonderful day out, we sailed up through the Duke of Westminster’s estate. As I listened to the commentary regarding what this man owns which indeed was a very lengthy list. I don’t know why they simply just say, The Duke of Westminster’s estate is basically Chester, the Dee. In fact why not just list the few bits of land he doesn’t own. Well anyway, Anna brought a fab lunch along with her and later we enjoyed some splendid hospitality back at her house.

On Tuesday night Barbara and Skipper joined us. Wednesday my nephew Matthew and his girlfriend Louise called to see us and on Thursday Barbara and Pauline, along with Barbara’s mother Jean, sister Janet, niece Beth with boyfriend Lee and of course aunty May, all trooped off to the Cheshire Oaks shopping centre. Later on Thursday, my other niece Fiona along with Barbara’s Sister Jacqueline and Brother in Law Lawrence called to see us.

Barbara, Skipper and Pauline returned home on Friday morning. Myself and Ray caught the Friday evening sailing as my treatment on Friday was too late for me to catch the morning sailing. We spent a couple of hours trawling around the Albert dock. The sailing to Douglas was delayed yet again and didn’t get away until after 8pm. We began by sitting in the main seating area. However, once 100 or more school kids boarded just before the vessel left we decided to upgrade. Upstairs on the sea slug is a very different experience than is in steerage. We were waited on by a steward who served us freshly made sandwiches, and coffee in china cups. Newspapers were also included as part of the deal, and even a little bowl of sweets is served along with your bill. £13.50 to upgrade does sound a tad expensive. However, when you think they charge around £4.50 for most sandwiches down below and £1.55 for a cup of coffee, I think overall, it is worth it and I will try to upgrade tomorrow morning. Well folks that just about completes my week. From Wednesday, I will be back blogging every day once again, although I’m sure you have been glad of the break, but all good things come to an end.

I will be writing articles from now on for Manx Tails which will not have been included in the blog. For those of you off Island readers, I will attach the Manx Tails articles to the blog at the end of the month when Tails comes out.

I said how fantastic the staff of Clatterbridge are at the beginning, well it is also true of my blog readers. Your support and encouragement has been absolutely fantastic as well. I am extremely grateful to you all. I look forward to getting back to normal next week. I’m not sure if life can ever be quite the same again but maybe it’s not supposed to be. Each day reveals a new story and we just don’t know what the end will entail. Can I conclude by asking Lonan3 to please drop me an email at tomglassey@manx.net I have your comment Lonan but I can’t reply to you through the forum due to my Braille software capablilities.

Bye Bye folks. Back on Wednesday and take good care.

PS. Will Mousey Christian in Ramsey please give me a call, I haven’t got your number Al and I have been meaning to have a chat with you. All the best then folks. Tom Glassey with News at 11.15, back on the banks of the Silverburn.