It is inevitable that sometimes in life we are all going to suffer some disappointments.

It might be a complete failure of the tomato crop or it could be Manchester United getting knocked out of the FA Cup.

I don’t often feel let down. It’s probably because I’m an incurable optimist.

But when it does happen, I rarely forget. I remember one particular time about 40 or 50 years ago when we lived at Greeba, during a warm summer’s day.

Now, back in the old days, life was simple and much less complicated.

Supermarkets had been born but were still a novelty, and the era of multi-choice in most of the products on the shelves was just beginning to gather pace.

The island was not about to be overlooked by this ’progress’, but there was an element of catch up to be taken into account.

It wasn’t just the food shelves that were starting to get excited. Alcohol was branching out from the specialist off-licence into the new supermarkets, and the drinkers who previously would have had to go to Liverpool or beyond to sample foreign fruits now only had to go to Shoprite.

In the old days, the local beer drinkers were generally divided into two groups. Castletown or Okells men.

A simple choice that was usually made just once, and rarely changed. Personally, I was a Castletown man, but as the newcomers began to appear in the pubs and supermarkets, I became just a little bit adventurous.

The jingle said what I needed was Watneys. It wasn’t. Another insisted that a Double Diamond worked wonders. It didn’t. I sampled them all. It turned out that I particularly enjoyed chilled, draught cider.

So anyway, back to a hot summer’s day in Greeba. We were sitting in the garden and starting to feel uncomfortable with the fixed look on the face of the lurcher that was on guard between us and the car. This was her regular look-out post, which made sure that she was not overlooked if we tried to escape.

I looked at my watch, looked at the sky, and looked at Brown Eyes.

’Do you fancy going for a walk?’ I asked.

The lurcher miraculously appeared beside her with a lead between her teeth.

We decided to walk to Laxey, and come back on the tram and the bus. This seems like a long way but it was a walk that we had done before.

We would walk along the road to Crosby, follow the lanes and paths to and through to Baldwin and up to the bottom of the track that leads up to Windy Corner.

Then a long slog up, cross the TT course to the other side and finally all downhill to Laxey.

Just before the hard road at the end of the footpath, there is a conveniently accessible river. The lurcher, who knows this walk like the back of her paw, only needs one nod to go ahead and wait for us, submerged right up to her nose.

The last stretch took us down the Glen Roy road and into Laxey village. By the time we reached the pub, the dog was dry, and we were thirsty.

I had been drooling over the thought of a ham and cheese sandwich and a pint of chilled cider at the Laxey Glen pub.

We were greeted by a smiling face and the question: ’What would you like?’

’Could we please have two glasses of cider and two ham and cheese sandwiches?’

The smiling face smilingly replied: ’I’m sorry, we don’t have draught cider and we have finished serving food.’

The lurcher wagged her tail. I was disappointed.

This little tale came to mind last Saturday afternoon when I called into the Legion Club to have a chat and a glass of whatever-came-to-mind, with an old friend and a one-time fellow Pulrose resident.

He wasn’t in, but they did have draught cider.

It was delicious.

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