On behalf of Colin and all of us here at iNews Cayman, I wish you all a very happy and prosperous New Year.

I also want to thank you for your continued support to iNews Cayman (THE EYE NEWS -ieyenews) as we conclude our eighth year of publication.

Is it really this long? It only seems a short while ago we started out. Then, our only competition was the Caymanian Compass and Cayman News Service. Now look at all the others that have popped up over the years?

Yes, here in Cayman we are so blessed. My BIG disappointment, however, is the closing down of CITN/Cayman27. It should not have happened and it was done deliberately by someone who I had respected and supported over many years. I am not saying any more than that. Time to move on, but I am bitterly hurt and I feel I have lost another baby. Yes, 2019 has been, and even this very moment in time, a very, very difficult year for me.

Let me finish on a brighter and more amusing note.

I was asked to read one of my poems at this year’s Rotary Boxing Day Senior Citizen’s Bash and it brought a lot of laughs. It was a true telling of an event I was the victim of when I was only seventy-three years young. I climbed a tree and fell. Enjoy. Even I laugh now, although at the time it happened I did cry…

THE FALL

By Joan (Watler) Wilson

There I was climbing this big Avocado Tree,

And me, way over the age of seventy-three.

Never had I seen so many Avocadoes before

So I £igured if I was lucky I might get three or four.

*

The Avocadoes were so big, so shiny and green

And Avocadoes this size are very rarely seen

They were so fit and asking to be picked

And there was no sign of my breadfruit stick.

*

By this time I’m 6 foot up the tree and doing fine

I was a little nervous so I was taking my time

Six gorgeous Avocadoes were just over my head

So I moved to the right and higher instead.

*

I realized by now I was at least 8 foot up the tree

And these six Avocadoes were right in front of me,

Come to think of it I should’ve had a camera crew

‘Cause climbers like me are very, very few.

*

So, I comfortably positioned myself getting ready to pick

One long stretch to my right when I heard a click

The click was a crack or a break I might say

As the limb left the tree with me that day.

*

Slip, slide, crack, wham – however you may describe a fall

I hit the ground, bruised, bleeding, limb and all!

I lay on the ground with the tree swirling above me

Avocadoes way up was all I could see.

*

May I say how disappointing that fall was for me?

And the worse part the Avocadoes were still on the tree.

I cried and groaned and was really hurting bad

So stunned and shocked by the fall I’d had.

*

For minutes it seemed I sat under the Avocado tree

Just wondering and wondering what had happened to me.

Painfully, I got to my feet and slowly limped away,

I would return to pick my Avocadoes another day.

*

To this day I can’t imagine why I climbed that Avocado tree

But I was so attracted to the Avocadoes you see

I guess these temptations happens to us all now and then

We slip back in time (way back) and think of when …. ??!!

*

(As they say there’s no gain without a little pain)