A couple of weeks ago, someone from the water department decided that we should go a bit easy on the precious liquid.

Apparently it was running out quicker than it was running in.

So a hosepipe ban was announced. It hasn’t stopped raining since.

And also, I recently named Douglas Promenade as ’No Man’s Land’. My error was quickly pointed out and I am more than happy to set the record straight. I did of course mean ’No Person’s Land’.

And, finally, I have received several messages from readers who were rather worried in case any harm or stress had befallen the sea gulls who were involved in the raid at Spill the Beans.

I can re-assure you one and all that at no time was there any damage or injury caused to any bird. But I am practising my backhand.

On the subject of gulls, I remember reading somewhere that the gull population is showing signs of slipping into a decline.

Now if there was ever a bird that you would think of as being numerically secure, it would be the common gull.

Gulls are everywhere, or so I thought.

Like most of us who have lived with gulls all our lives, we have always known of them as seagulls. This, I am reliably informed, is wrong.

There are herring gulls, common gulls, black back gulls and a sub-species of black backs called lesser.

But to any Pully kid, they were simply seagulls and, as all Pully kids knew, Pulrose was built on and surrounded by landfill sites.

Collectively known as the tip, it was the Douglas Corporation municipal waste depot.

But to kids and gulls alike, it was treasure island, with each group searching for their particular plunder and neither gang getting in the other’s way.

Another source of food for gulls was to follow the plough. As soon as the farmer scratched the surface of the stubble field, both he and and his tractor would vanish under a cloud of white feathers.

On a good day, the gulls must have swallowed tonnes of worms.

How many kids these days would sit and watch a gull paddling with his big flat feet on a patch of short clipped grass?

He would paddle away and then stop, listen and watch for the worm or two that has been tricked into thinking that it is raining.

Unfortunately their main food sources are being lost. There is less farming, there is very little open landfill tipping and the once-busy fishing industry has almost completely vanished.

The gull is a very versatile creature. It can rapidly adapting both its habits and habitat.

Here in Onchan, Brown Eyes has only to open our back door and a gull will instantly appear in the garden. If I sit down at the desk to write a few words, a gull will land on the greenhouse roof and stand and wait for as long as it takes to wear me down.

We all live in the one world and we should share and share alike. But the idea of co-habitation wears a bit thin when those big, white, immaculate, beautiful birds insist on picking all of the (not yet ripe) apples from our trees.

But insult really is added to injury when two of their cousins follow us to town and attempt to swipe our food from our hands.

Be fair boys and girls. Live and let live.

But, before we leave the promenade, I have just heard a rumour from someone who swears that it is true.

This bloke who I know, knows this other bloke whose friend told him that someone has just found a colony of very rare sand frogs under the road at Broadway.

Don’t panic, it is just a joke, but it is about the only problem that the road re-builders haven’t thought of yet.

And, for heavens sake, don’t mention the word bat.