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In every day life, John Jackson, a former Ship's Captain now retired. He still retains an avid interest in the Hash House Harriers, Rugby, Food, Romantic Fiction, Philately, etc etc etc.

Friday, September 20, 2013

Big Skies, and an imminent Glitter Explosion

A first attempt at a general sort of blog, seeing as a lot of the people who interest me do this on a regular basis.

Big Skies. We are in South West France, in a tiny village called Touille, where you can look out from the verandah in our Gite and see the Pic du Midi at 54 miles away!! Today is our last day before heading home, and it has been one of the best Gite holidays we have ever had. Perhaps, because of that, the weather is spectacularly fine today; a few tufts of cumulus earlier, lots of vapour trails and sunshine.

Where we are is pretty well 60 miles south-south-west of Toulouse, right on the border between Haute Gironde and Ariege, and it has proved ideally placed for exploring. We've had a day at the seaside in Biarritz and Bayonne, we have climbed (in the car) the Col du Tourmalet, and several other passes, and have visited several charming and interesting small towns and markets. A lot of the buildings round here are sandstone-made, and some of the villages look remarkably like the Cotswolds, colour-wise

The local cheeses are outstanding – and there are so many of them, and the Madiran wine is a gorgeous gutsy red – we have enough to last us a good while, especially as this is likely to be the last gite holiday we take, for financial and health reasons. Next summer, its pension time, but for all my readers – I recommend this area!!

On the Glitter front, its the new season of Strictly, of course. The first for several years without Vincent and Flavia, but it still looks like a pretty good set of pros and slebs. Bruce Forsyth is still there, unfortunately. I remember him when he was good – oh, so long ago, in pantomime when I was about 12. They say the best sort of guest to have at a party is the guest who knows when to leave – something I try to be myself. It does seem to have passed Brucie by though. I do find it bizarre that everyone says that Strictly wouldn't be successful without him, yet its perfectly successful without him in about 100 other countries!

Of course, its only a matter of a few short weeks before we get deluged in the press with reports of romances, showmances and bromances. Personally, I'll stick with the dancing. I'll miss V&F though, who I've had the privilege of meeting, and seeing several times. We already have our tickets for their next production, Dance 'till Dawn, in its opening week in Bristol next year.

Twittering over Strictly is where I bumped into several of the lady writers I “know”. Fun, all of them. I've just finished and really enjoyed Liz Harris's A Bargain Struck, and am just getting into Talli Roland's Build A Man. I look forward to meeting all of you actually in the flesh, as it were, at some time in the not too distant future.

Various leg-related issues (lol) have kept me sedentary as various times over the last few years, and for a while, the Net was really the only way I could get “out of the house.” While P and I have always been Strictly fans, a few years ago we really got into it, and I started chatting to a few people in one of the popular chat sites (Digital Spy). Not knowing the language and codes for such things, I found myself roundly attacked and abused, but then adopted by a group of what turned out to be extremely nice females of all ages from 16 to 66. P and I have met up with several of them a few times now, and I still chat regularly to them. They keep me young!

More soon – hopefully reporting on a successful house sale.

John

jjackson@btinternet.com
@jjackson42