A decade ago Pullyman - aka Michael Cowin - was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease, a condition that affects people in different ways. Michael discovered writing and Island Life is featuring some of his musings. Sometimes topical, sometimes nostalgic, read about life as seen through the eyes of Pullyman

It happens to us all. You go into a room to get something and find that your mind has gone blank.

Can you remember what it was that you wanted? No chance. You have to go back to where you were and start again.

I remember one time I had dressed up in my cold weather gear, dragged ’Pullyman One’ and gone into town to buy something from Marks and Spencer.

To this day I don’t know what it was but, whatever it could have been, it obviously wasn’t important. I’ve managed to do without it.

Going on what folk tell me, almost everyone who reaches ’a certain age’ has these memory lapses, and we all think that we are beginning to develop some form of dementia.

Sadly, there is no doubt that some of us will but, in most cases, I think that we are just getting old.

And anyway, whatever it was that we wanted from the front room, will still be there when we remember what it was.

But when you think about it, isn’t the human memory a wonderful thing? When you plug a memory stick into your computer, you can store or replay data. Now, to my simple mind that knows very little about computers, I think that data sticks are miraculous.

But, compared to what’s between your ears, a memory stick is as basic as an abacus.

As the saying goes, ’you learn something new every day’. And you do.

From learning to read and write in primary school and from reciting your two-times-table in front of your classmates, your brain will automatically store that information for ever. It never forgets anything. It may be a bit of a struggle to dredge what you want to know from the depths of your grey matter, but if you try hard enough, it will come.

Take as an example television advertising. We all know as an indisputable fact that Flash will clean your bath without scratching, or that Persil really will make your clothes whiter than white.

And, as the Toucan who could balance a glass of beer on its beak was always quick to tell us, Guinness was most definitely good for you.

Now I am going back about 50 years or so to remember those old adverts, but I wouldn’t mind betting a packet of ’Embassy tipped’ to a ’Mars a day’, that most of the readers of this column will have no trouble re-calling these, and many more similar examples.

For many of us, our musical memories started in the fifties with ’Rock around the Clock’, and continued in the sixties with The Beatles.

We only have to hear the first few notes of any song and we can sing along with the best of them.

There can’t be much wrong with a brain that knows the words and music to hundreds of tunes.

I read somewhere that the cells in your body are constantly dying but the cells in your brain just keep going from strength to strength. The longer and harder that you make your brain work, is the stronger that it becomes.

I have an incurable degenerative brain disorder called Parkinson’s Disease.

This means that the part of the brain that manufactures the neural communicator called Dopamine doesn’t do its job properly and has to be replaced with a laboratory made substitute. The problem is that it is difficult to balance the dosage.

I practise a strict physical and mental exercise regime, and I am convinced that it works. So much so that my medication has hardly changed for the last ten years.

Pretend that your brain is a muscle and make it work hard.

Sadly, some of us will develop one of the many variations of dementia. The plain fact is that we are all living longer, and things happen.

But if you can’t remember why you went next door, it’s probably your age.

Just forget about it.