My drive to work proves we live in the best part of UK - Rick Jackson

I’m sure for most of us the thought of a daily 4.30am alarm call is enough to fill us with dread every time we turn off the light at night.It certainly does for me, but this time of the year it becomes just a little more bearable even if the passing of the summer solstice does make me feel a little melancholy because it means the days are shortening again.
BURNISHED: Osborne House glows orange in the summer sunrise across the SolentBURNISHED: Osborne House glows orange in the summer sunrise across the Solent
BURNISHED: Osborne House glows orange in the summer sunrise across the Solent

You see, at the moment, I go to bed when it’s still light and wake up when it’s just getting light.

Sometimes it feels like I’ve just closed my eyes when I wake.

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I love driving to work at this time of year and it confirms to me we really do live in the best part of the UK.

As Alverstoke turns into Lee-on-the-Solent, I spot Osborne House, Queen Victoria’s residence on the Isle of Wight, glowing orange.

It takes on that hue as the morning sun catches the beautiful belvedere towers of its wonderful Italianate facade.

Farther along I see the regular runners out for their morning jog.

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As they pass, the large windows of the hotels, apartments and restaurants of Cowes seafront reflect strongly back to the mainland across the Solent.

At this point, you might be lucky enough to see a giant cruise liner slowly meandering her way out of the Solent and up Southampton Water as its many occupants slumber soundly, unaware of the beautiful landscape through which they are passing.

Then it’s on through Stubbington and past the strawberry fields on the way to Titchfield.

At this point, if it’s a clear morning, the sun is well above the horizon and blinds you from the east.

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Once at work and my show begins, the sun then beams brightly through the studio window, so bright I can hardly see the mixing desk in front of me and the blinds are needed for a while.

I’ll be honest with you, I savour every minute of this time of the year as so very soon it will be pitch black again when I wake and dark when I head to bed.

The beautiful views I’ve enjoyed all summer on my drive to work will be shrouded by the darkness of winter until the sun returns closer to our part of the world once again.

Yellow warning! There will be a storm in a tea cup today

If I had a pound for every time weather forecasters said it was going to rain when it didn’t, or rain when it was meant to be dry, I’d be taking my summer holiday in Sorrento not Swanage.

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This week it’s all been yellow warnings of thunderstorms but I’ve not heard a rumble? The biggest storms have been on Love Island. Yellow warning after yellow warning, yet nothing. It’s like they’re crying wolf.

It seems the more money the forecasters spend on computer technology the less accurate the forecasts become. As for the 14-day forecast on the BBC Weather app, that’s as accurate as a drunk man at the urinals of a nightclub. I now check to see if cows are sitting or standing for my forecasts.

Miliband as Lib Dem leader would certainly get my vote

I’m pretty liberal when it comes to politics. I’m a bit centre left and a bit centre right. I don’t mind saying I voted Labour in the ’90s and noughties and Conservative ever since.

Now I’m disillusioned with the lot of them. We have Hard Labour on one side and a Conservative party ripping itself apart while the two candidates for prime minister fill me with as much pleasure as watching anything with Keith Lemon in it.

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I wonder if all the Labour and Tory MPs who quit to set up the Change UK party followed Chuka Umunna to the Lib Dems, could David Miliband be persuaded to rejoin mainstream politics as their possible new leader? Now that would make it more interesting.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

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