I have woken up today feeling good for the first time in over two weeks. It's as if I have been given a reprieve for my birthday. I have let so many birthdays slip by in the past unnoticed. However, if there is such a thing as a special birthday, then I suppose this is one. Today I am 55. I was not supposed so see this birthday. On this day last year I woke up, got dressed and reached for my pipe. Of course I did not know what lay ahead. By October I had packed in smoking, and by November I was struggling to walk on the beach. December was a long struggle with pneumonia and by January lung cancer had been diagnosed and I had not been given very long to live. February was the start of chemotherapy and on April 1^st my Dad died. May saw the end of my chemotherapy and by June I was over in Clatterbridge have radiotherapy. July saw me back in my own home again and now all I have to do is cope with a few side effects. All in all, I am in much better shape on this 55^th birthday than I was last year, although I didn't know it at the time. Of course I don't know what lies ahead in the coming year. Maybe the cancer will return, maybe I will win the lottery. Maybe and hopefully, nothing dramatic will happen. If I can get through another year waking every morning to the sound of the birds and in the winter, the rain beating on my window, followed in the spring with the sound of the dawn chorus, then I will indeed have won the lottery. You know folks; some things in life are just meant to happen. The explanations are far to deep for me to examine.

Let me close by relating something that happened to me yesterday. I was sitting on my sofa listening to the wireless. The next thing I know, I hear a voice in the doorway, a voice I would recognize anywhere. Two seconds later, my old friend Captain Jack Ronan is sitting in my living room. I haven't seen Jack for quite some time; however he chose to arrive on September 7^th. 45 years ago he would have been taking me back to school in Liverpoool on his ship. Isn't it strange that out of all the days he should choose to pay me a visit, he chooses the date I would be going back to school? This morning I have been out to Fort Island with Barbara and Skipper for a walk. In an hour or so, I shall head over to Port Erin. The boss has given me a reprieve from my side effects for the day and I am extremely grateful. I shall sail now into another year, and no matter what troubles I encounter I shall fight for life because, family, friends and just life itself is far too precious to let go of.

This is Tom Glassey, happy and content on the banks of the Silverburn River.