AS I stood in the square in front Marks and Spencer in Blackburn, giving out roses in honour of St George’s Day, I was quite impressed by the acknowledgement of the people receiving them.

Only one man refused my offering, everyone else seemed very receptive.

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So, do I feel a greater awareness of just what our country stands for?

The answer is, yes, I think I do and I thought that I detected a quiet but a very strong feeling of pride in their country among the passers by that day.

This was very much reinforced at the St George’s dinner which was held at the Blackburn Rovers dining room on Saturday evening.

We all had such a great night and we sang our favourite national songs with great pride and gusto, and I came away thinking how glad and proud I am to live in such a wonderfully free country.

With this in mind, I got to thinking “if you could choose to live wherever you wanted, where would you choose?”

As I have travelled quite extensively and been to some very lovely places and even lived and worked in quite a few, my answer would, without a doubt, be here, in England and most definitely here in Lancashire, with its beautiful countryside, but best of all with its warm and friendly people.

That is something that you don’t get everywhere.

As I sit writing this to you I am eating a chocolate éclair and I am thinking, no I am wondering, why it’s called that and what does the word éclair mean?

Sorry but there has to be a pause here, while I get the dictionary out and have a look.

It seems the word comes from the French éclair meaning ‘flash of lightning’, so named because it is eaten quickly (in a flash) and I must admit for me that is definitely true.

I am now going off to bath Baby my little dog.

It’s a job I don’t enjoy and neither does she, but it has to be done, like cleaning the windows and such like. So it’s a case of needs must!

After the bath, the other task is trimming her hair; this is where, if I am not careful, I get a bit of a nip, not a full grown bite, but just enough for her to tell me “Margo, enough is enough”.But, you know, I wouldn’t be without her for the world.