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

Still here then? That’s worth a round of applause.

Did you join in the open air ’thank you’ to the NHS the other evening?

Brown Eyes entered into the spirit but I have to admit that I was worried about catching a cold so I stayed inside.

It’s all a bit strange. No shops, no pubs, no coffee on the Quay or a trip out on the scooter.

I tell you what though. You don’t half save some money. We’ve been cooped up for three weeks and I haven’t opened the wallet once.

The car hasn’t used a lick of petrol. If this situation carries on much longer we could afford a week’s holiday in a care-home.

If something tickles the brain, I will scribble a note on a page from one of those spiral books and file it away for future reference. Then I forget about it.

Anyway, the other day I was having a bit of a tidy up. I was having a bottom-drawer rummage when I came across one of those cardboard files.

There was a mixed bag of half finished poems, a list of title ideas for yet to be written columns and, best of all, some ’misquotes’ that I had heard with my own ears and remembered to write down before they were forgotten.

One of my favourites came from one of our well-remembered and long-since retired MHKs Peter Karran, who was in attacking mood when he informed a government minister that, ’all of his white elephants were coming home to roost’.

A football commentator, who had been summing up the performance of a particular player in a league match, Spurs v Middlesborough, said ’he can leave here today with his chest held high’.

Another retired local politician, Alex Downey, who is a collector of vintage motorcycles once stated: ’This bike is absolutely unique. I know of only one other.’

And finally a BBC Radio 4 reporter, who commented that an MP should ’listen to the other side of the coin’.

Well how is it for you? The lock down, I mean.

It takes a bit of getting used to, but it’s not going to go away any time soon.

It affects just about every thing. The football league, the Grand National, the Boat Race and, of course, the traditional Easter egg rolling.

To the average Pulrose family of 70 or so years ago, it was definite date on the calendar.

Hard boiled eggs, painted yellow with gorse-flower dye, and decorated with youthful imagination.

There would be a picnic trip on the steam train to Port Soderick or, if times were hard, a family walk through Middle Farm and the Marine Drive to the same destination.

Easter was always special and even more so when on Good Friday, 60 years ago this week, Pullyman first met Brown Eyes on a fine, warm Peel Promenade afternoon.

Together with a best friend of the time, a Spring Valley man called John, we had cycled over to Peel for a skeet and an ice cream.

Now, in those days, each day, rain or shine, I would cycle into work in Lake Road abattoir and quite often I would fall into line astern with the Pully bus.

Like most lads of a certain age, I was alert to spot a pretty face and a couple of times I had noticed a dark haired, brown eyed young lady sitting on one of the sideways facing back row seats.

And guess who I spotted on Peel promenade?

The rest is history! I casually asked John if he knew who she was, and he thought that he knew her surname, and that she might live in Braddan.

That was all that I needed.

On Saturday morning, the next day, I found her name in the phone book and on Sunday we went for a walk.

On Easter Monday we went to the pictures and about four years later, we were married.

And that, my friends, was how Pullyman and Brown Eyes first met, 60 years ago, this Good Friday.

Sometime 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