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It’s countdown time, less than three weeks till TT fortnight. Roads are being mended, hotels touched up and more bikers wearing racing leathers are appearing on the roads. The TT barriers and safety equipment have popped up around the course and that familiar air of anticipation is here again. I’ve completed my new online marshal training and looking forward to practice evenings after work at the top of Duke’s Avenue.
In the meantime we can enjoy the gentler part of life.
The Promenade has undergone a revamp and the horse-trams will be late starting this summer but I figure they can’t be far off as I saw some tram horses in a field near the grandstand yesterday:
While on the topic of animals, I’ve been having a few animal encounters since getting back in April from my Australia trip:
A Manx cat crossed my path on my first day back, I’m not sure if that’s lucky or not. I guess I’ll be OK as long as I don’t mention the other word for a longtail, you are allowed to spell it: R-A-T, but something dreadful will happen if you say the word! I wonder if that can be cancelled out by the good fortune you have if you say hello to the fairies under the Fairy Bridge?
That peacock that I featured in my previous post, who frequents the Tescos car-park and the adjacent railway station appeared with full tail display to greet the steam train I was on recently (more fame for me as this picture made it into the readers photos in the local paper – probably to promote the Transport Festival):
On one of our recent walks we passed a farmer loading his Loughton sheep into a truck. They are unique to the Isle of Man and have four (sometimes six!!!) horns and brown wool:
There are also plenty of Spring lambs till around – please don’t anyone mention mint sauce, I prefer to live in denial:
A friend and I also came across a spooked baby rabbit on a walk last week, someone who lives nearby assured us it did eventually move:
The water birds are abundant and diverse:
There are all sorts of motorsport events here besides the TT here. I was walking to work the other day and was passed by these cars that were here for the annual hill climb event, once again I felt I was in a time warp:
Our rented flat is just up the road going off to the left of that picture.
Talking of events. I am organising the Inaugural Isle of Man Scrabble Championship here in May 2020. I’m working with people from the Association of British Scrabble Players (ABSP) and it will count as a British rated tournament. I hope some players from Australia will make it too!
About half the ladies I’ve made friends with seem to be called Jackie, below is one I go walking with who also volunteers for Compassionate Isle of Man
Compassionate Isle of Man is a group of volunteers that I’ve joined, coordinated by two ladies based at the Hospice. We try and help people with life-limiting illnesses. This includes back-home boxes for people discharged from hospital who live alone, sitting with people near end of life who don’t have friends or family on the Island and we currently have a roster to babysit a one-year-old whose Mother is very ill. Here’s a somewhat posed one of packing a Compassionate Isle of Man back-home box:
