Sunday's Spotlight - Spring has Sprung!

By guest blogger Pete.

No one seemed to detect my "deliberate" mistake in last week's blog, when I credited Jimmy  Connors with making Gene Kelly look as though he had two left feet.  In actual fact it was Donald O'Connor who had the aforementioned effect on  Gene.  What do you mean "deliberate", I heard you saying - (I've got very good hearing!!!).  Okay, you win.  Put it all down to "crinkly" weaknesses.  At least I nearly got the surname right!

We did see Debbie on Sunday. How's that for name dropping?   "Whose Debbie?" my extraordinary hearing hears you ask.  Well, Debbie Reynolds, of course.  A very entertaining afternoon it was as well.

She is an extremely professional performer. In fact I would say that her one weakness was that she was too professional.  Of course she didn't dance - at 76 years of age  (our local paper said that she was 77, but that's par for the course) -but you can't expect her to give a repeat performance of "Singing in the Rain".  She was a bit unsteady on her pins and the one fear I had was that she'd fall; fortunately that didn't happen.

The poster advertising her performance read "ALIVE and well".  As someone who shall remain nameless but has the initials RB said, " Just as well that she is alive or it wouldn't have been much of a performance!"  in actual fact she joked continuously about her age and closeness of death  so the poster blurb wasn't as wrong as it may have sounded (or read).

She cracked some great gags and turned out to be a very talented impersonator.  She now has a bit of gruffness in  her speaking voice - this enabled her to do a first class impersonation of Jimmy Stewart.  That gruffness, however, disappeared when she sang.

Although she received a standing ovation at the end of her performance it was a pity that she didn;t think an encore worth while.  A few years ago we saw an equally aged Tony Bennett at the Sonoma Jazz Festival.  Of the two I would say that Tony Bennett's performance outshone that of Debbie Reynolds.

Over the early May bank holiday the churches flower festivals in the South Holland district of southern Lincolnshire begin.  As you read this that festival started yesterday and will go on until Monday week.  Pam and I plan to visit Long Sutton tomorrow.  That town has a large church and they draw flower arrangers from all over the midlands.  It's a long drive but worth it.  The photos for this blog are taken from last years South Holland flower festival.

Keep on singing.  If you want to see Debbie Reynolds then she's due to preform at the Leeds Grand Theatre tonight at 7.30 p.m. (UK time).