Well there is good news and there is bad news if you are a black cat.

Especially if you are the long-tailed black cat that hangs around the Groudle Road area in Onchan.

For some time, we have been cursed by this particular cat that insists on using one of our greenhouses as a toilet.

Now I agree that it sounds somewhat pretentious to describe this structure as a greenhouse, but to me, that’s just what it is. It is about 25ft long and started life as an outdoor raised bed.

When I started to become less agile, I decided that it would be a good idea to convert the thing into a covered raised bed. So this meant that I had a 10ft aluminium greenhouse, and a 25ft, wooden framed, plastic glazed, B & Q-roofed, home-made greenhouse.

There was only one problem, however. There was a way in for cats.

No matter how hard I schemed, plotted and scratched my head, this damned cat would always find a way in.

I chased him, cursed him and threatened him. But I could not stop him.

Until the other day.

If you are anything like me, you will have had a list of odd jobs to be done that you have been trying to get to for ages.

Now if you are sound in body and mind you stand a fighting chance to have a go but if you are on the wrong side of normality, it can be a touch more difficult.

But fortunately, there is always ’the man in the pub’.

No matter what you want or what you need, ’the man in the pub’ will know someone who can help you in your hour of need.

And sure enough, the other tea time, I was in the piano bar in the Manx Arms and, in general conversation, happened to mention a broken gate that I had been promising to repair for several years.

Then one thing leads to another and this other man, said that his brother knew a man who had fixed his broken gate only a couple of weeks ago.

But enough of this waffle.

To cut a long story short, the gate has been repaired and the greenhouse has been up-graded to be cat proof. Whoopee!

My saviour was a retired joiner of what is usually known as ’time served’.

He had learned the basic skills of his trade in an old-fashioned workshop from an old-fashioned tradesman and was the ideal man to repair broken gates and greenhouses for old-fashioned, semi-damaged old men.

On a similar theme, the other day, I was having what we would call a root.

I was in the garden shed and I was looking for a small bolt, (don’t ask).

Now, I never throw anything away. I’ve got umpteen small plastic tubs full of odd screws, various nuts and bolts and a selection of odds and ends that I am sure will come in handy some day.

The snag is, I know that I have an old bolt, but I just don’t know where it is.

In times gone by there used to be an elusive band of quiet men.

They wore long, brown overall coats and stood behind work scarred counters in old ’been here for ever’ shops that hid their secrets behind battered old doors in old cobbled back lanes.

These old establishments were to be found all over town. They were suppliers of the basic necessities and tools for the likes of plumbers, joiners, painters and electricians.

If you needed a pane of glass a tin of paint, or an old-type bolt. They were the boys to see.

But things change. The back lanes and side streets, the old wooden doors and the names that we all knew are long gone. Names like Cannell and Harvey, Todhunter and Elliott, and Gellings Foundry are barely remembered.

We don’t repair old wooden gates, we buy new ones. And as for the cats.

Just one word.

Meeow.

Some time 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