I’m just about to have breakfast. Well it’s a good job I’m not hungry. I have been out in the fields to collect my breakfast and the two mushrooms I picked are at this minute frying in the pan. Well at least Skipper enjoyed himself, both he and I have had a good walk, and unlike golf, mushrooming does not ruin a good walk. I am never disappointed if I return from mushrooming with only a couple of mushrooms or even nothing at all. Neither I am I disappointed when I return from fishing with only one or no fish. I am just so happy to be lucky enough to be living in a part of the world where these wonderful activities are possible. Barbara has just bought me a shooting stick and I have just tried it out. No, don’t be worrying, I am not about to take up shooting. It’s just a very handy stick with a seat at one end of it, and a spike on the other.

I did once try my hand at shooting and It wasn’t a great success. I went with a party of friends and I only fired one shot in to the sky. Just like the rest of our party on that day, I hit nothing, and we all returned to Castletown empty handed. As a kid I did once throw a boomerang though, and yes it actually came back, although it was a couple of days later and courtesy of a police officer. A family friend called George had made the boomerang for me after much pestering by me. I took my boomerang over the wall into Victoria Road School. I don’t think I actually hit anyone, but somehow my boomerang ended up in the hands of one of the teachers who reported to the police that someone had thrown a boomerang in the school yard. I would have got away with it, except for the fact that my brother Kevin tried to get my boomerang back, he being the only person at the school that recognised the weapon. George Squires is now long dead. He was a truly wonderful man that made so many of my childhood dreams come true. He took me sailing in his boat, and made me small toy boats. I think in all his years, the only time the police ever had reason to talk to him was for making a wooden boomerang for a blind child. God bless George, he didn’t know I actually intended to use it with hope it would come back to me. He probably just thought I wanted to know what one felt like.

Well that is just about it for today folks. If you can be bothered to log on tomorrow, then I can be bother to blog on tomorrow. Until then, farewell.from Tom Glassey, mushrooming, shooting, and boomeranging my way along the banks of the Silverburn River.