OK now here is some HUGE confession…..well to all except my family who already know this shameful secret even though they may well have forgotten.

When I was ten years old, my first crush was on ……..(squirms in chair as she types)….Cliff Richard. I had a photo of him, published in the Radio Times, standing in a leafy glade in a wood somewhere, with red love hearts on each corner. It was Sellotaped to my dressing table mirror.

I am relieved to report this didn’t last long. You have to forgive me for this callow misjudgement. It’s true to say that this was around the time the man was becoming a figure of ridicule rather than the cute young man of the Summer Holiday era. I suspect that even as such a youngster, I picked up on these vibes. Anyway, I did get over it by the age of eleven when my hormones were bursting over David Cassidy. BUT during those few months when I had the crush on Cliff, I managed to watch ‘Summer Holiday’ many times. I loved that film – especially its basic premise of a double decker bus touring Europe at a time when we Brits didn’t really do European travel or indeed any travel other than what was necessary. It seemed so exciting as well as having the glorious(!) draw of Cliff and the Shads – what more could a young girl, in the first flush of puberty want.

Tonight I have been reliving that dream but ‘with knobs on’ as they say. We’ve been to the Minack Theatre in the furthest corner of our wonderful county to see a stage rendition of Summer Holiday, we even had an appearance from Cliff! OK so it was a cliff rather than Cliff but I’m claiming it anyway.

When we knew Mark’s itinerary and he had expressed a desire to go to the Minack, we had the choice of booking for Summer Holiday or for Pride and Prejudice. I told Mark we’d try to get P&P so he dutifully read it then sent me a message asking me if it was at all realistic in its vacuous ness and I replied that the English Gentry had little to do but gossip and daydream. We discovered that the only seats we could get for P&P were ‘in the Gods’ as they say and I must say that without the draw of Colin Firth striding out of the lake in his diaphanous white muslin shirt it seemed decidedly less than appealing. Colin Firth is definitely not my type – too chunky for me but boy that scene is very sexy indeed. I wonder if I could persuade DM to re-enact it??????

So, Summer Holiday it was. What we’d not really fully appreciated from our time in NYC with Mark was his complete lack of interest in and knowledge about popular culture. I was getting a bit worried when he’d not heard of Travis (we took him to a local beauty spot the other day where they filmed a video). I got more worried as we drove towards the Minack and we heard he’d never even heard of Cliff (not that we’d hold that against him, more that it was a shock).

Anyway, we got there and had a wonderful evening – the show was probably if truth be told not my cup of tea but it was full of nostalgia for me. I knew all of the songs and many I’d not heard for years. The experience of sitting looking out at the Atlantic and watching a show was surreal and rather splendid. Even Mark, with no interest in the music, knowledge of the subject or awareness of the time thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

This shot is the grand finale of the show – it’s my grand finale for today too.

Last year I posted one of my 'smoke and mirrors' shots. I was and still am hugely proud of this pic, which was incredibly difficult to set up and achieve. The summer before, I was watching my three precious people frolicking in the waves and getting trouble with DM for my wonky horizon.