Good morning folks. Well I guess I will start by explaining that at present I am writing the blog the day before you actually read it. I have found that if I write the blog through the day, Barbara can just come along and post it on to the site at around 7 a.m. This also gives me the chance to update the blog in the morning if necessary. So, it is now 10 a.m on Thursday morning. We were supposed to be taking Aunt May on the steam train to Ronaldsway Halt today but it has fallen through. We could not be bothered hanging around until 10.40, the time of the first train, so, we all headed off to the beach instead. Anyway Skipper enjoyed the beach, and Aunty May enjoyed the fact that there was at least 70 miles of sea water between her and Warrington. Barbara picked some Sorrel and Milk Thistle to feed her cockatiels and canaries. Barbara has been studying her wild plants through a book her sister Janet has bought her; she has also been getting lessons from Andrew Qualtrough, who is Castletown’s answer to David Attenborough. When we lived in Ramsey, our old friend Albert Garrett use to say, “There is a cure for every illness in the World out there in the garden, if we only knew what it was”. So, I guess it can do no harm to know your plants. A little knowledge certainly would have been handy last year when we unknowingly grew a huge cannabis plant in our back garden. We think the seed must have got there from the bird seed we buy from a supplier of bird food. We watered it and generally nurtured it until one day someone came along who explained what it was. The plant mysteriously disappeared soon after!

When I was a kid, I once found a lobster pot floating in my back garden. Someone had thrown it there. It had a couple of holes in it and was obviously now useless. However, it was made of iron. So, it felt like a sort of iron football. Someone told me it was a bomb. At that time they were building the clinic at Janet’s Corner next to our house. I thought it would be exciting to hear the bomb explode, and I couldn’t wait to hear the sound of the clinic being blown up. I remember getting really excited at the thought of my bomb blowing the clinic to smithereens. I stood with one hand clutching the iron railings and with the other I fired my bomb over the railings and in to the wall of the clinic. I did not know buildings could talk, and even if they did talk, of all buildings you don’t expect a clinic to swear. Leslie was and I hope still is a really nice guy. He had been working on the clinic building since the start of the job. Every evening at the end of his stint, he used to take me for a spin on his motorbike. As far as I know, he made a full recovery from being hit full on by my lobster pot iron bomb.

My mate David who lives across the road from me called round for a drink last night. Aunty May bought me the most fantastic cognac you could ever wish to taste. Anyway I was not going to give Dave any of that, so I dug out a few tins of John Smith’s, the drink I used to like when I was a commoner. Anyway Dave calling round reminded me of the time about 30 years ago when he came home on leave from the navy. He rang me from Douglas and asked me to meet him in the Wheatsheaf pub. I made my way in to Douglas on the bus. After finding my way to the Wheatsheaf, I decided to visit the toilet before going in to the bar. I was not familiar with this pub so I was a sort of feeling my way around. Having found the toilet, I then had to locate the trough which would be situated usually on a tiled wall. I made my way towards it with my hands stretched out. The trouble was, a chap was standing there having a pee when I pushed him right into the trough. He let out a loud yell which took me back a bit. Anyway I said to him. “If only you had yelled out a few seconds ago, you would not now have to go home and change your trousers!”

Well people that is it for today. Aunty May now wants to go to the market in Castletown. Of course I will be back tomorrow. Take care. This is Tom Glassey with News from a timeless zone, on the banks of the Silverburn