CHERYL GIBBS: Dale was too young to go, his star was still bright

What a loss and how very sad, he wasn’t even old enough to claim his pension.

It’s rare nowadays for people not to live into their eighties, so for such a bright star to die at 62 is nothing short of tragic.

At the time of writing this, details about his death haven’t been released so I can’t comment or speculate on what that might be.

But a big personality has died and this will undoubtedly affect a lot of people – not just his family and close friends.

I’ll always fondly remember watching Supermarket Sweep as a child and thinking that he had the best job in TV.

Who wouldn’t want to present a show like that?

It was such fun to watch and I always admired Dale’s commitment to be who he was on TV and not conform, as is often the case.

You’ll be sadly missed Dale!

I SAT RIGHT DOWN AND WROTE MYSELF A LETTER...

‘Remember to be kind to yourself. Pause, take five minutes and just be.’

Those were the philosophical words I wrote to myself during my last session at Southsea Mindfulness.

Yes, I wrote myself a letter. But why?

It was the final session of a nine-week course on being mindful and it was a good exercise to write down our thoughts about what we’d learnt and experienced, and what we’d like to remind ourselves in the future.

The letters will be posted to us in the future at some point.

It was a really emotional experience actually, and one that I wasn’t prepared for.

I started welling up while writing to myself and desperately tried to avoid making eye contact with anyone.

But I can totally see why the course leaders, Sabrina and Sue, asked us to do it. For me, it has been a revelation.

I started the course in the hope that it would help me deal with a stress-related autoimmune disease called oral lichen planus. It causes me huge amounts of pain in my mouth.

But I actually forgot about this pretty quickly and started a deeper journey about learning to exist in myself and just, well, be.

It may sound a little odd to you, but I can’t tell you the difference it makes in how you feel when you learn to just be within yourself.

I’m not going to lie, taking time out of your day just to exist and be still and be within your body takes a lot of skill and determination.

I wouldn’t say I’ve been a model student by any stretch of the imagination, but when you do commit you feel the benefits, and I would recommend Southsea Mindfulness to anyone.

People from all walks of life attend the course and it has helped me a lot.

Sue and Sabrina are awesome people and it’s quite therapeutic to sit in a circle with people who you don’t really know, all sharing experiences.

Perhaps it could help you too?

WHAT’S IN A NAME?

So it has been announced that Khloe Kardashian has given birth to a baby girl and her name has now been revealed to be ...True.

I actually rather like quirky names like this and was probably the only one on the planet who quite liked the name Kim Kardashian chose for her first daughter, North.

I probably wouldn’t opt for such unusual names for my children, but I quite like it. I do however see the irony in Khloe calling her daughter that name given that the baby daddy has been anything but true of late.

You may recall me writing last week about how Khloe’s partner Tristan Thomspon has been filmed getting rather ‘close’ to some female company lately. Tut tut.

Ironic really, but let’s hope he steps up to the plate and becomes the father that every child needs – someone to depend on.