I’VE just spent five incredible days relaxing in the Scottish Western Isles of Barra, Vatersay, Eriskay and South Uist and, brace yourselves, dear people, for what I’m about to say may shock you to your very core.

Someone, somewhere managed to find the off switch for the taps in the sky and I even saw a huge yellow ball up there in between the clouds ... on more than one occasion, too.

It was five days of bliss and relaxation with no TV, phone or wifi connection for the most part. so when our boat arrived into Oban on Tuesday afternoon my phone lit up like a Christmas tree with messages, notifications and news updates from over the weekend.

It was quite amazing how much I’d missed in those few days. Former One Direction member Zayn Malik called off his engagement with Little Mix’s Perrie Edwards, causing millions of teenage girls around the world to breathe a sigh of relief that they were now back in with a shot of becoming the future Mrs Malik.

The Muppets’ Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy have also reportedly decided to call time on their relationship.

It’s always great for a single woman’s self-esteem to hear that a puppet with someone’s hand up its bahookie is throwing the men away, while she can’t even seem to find a man who possesses his own teeth and a pulse, preferably to simply text her back, never mind happily date her for years on end.

There was, however, the terribly sad news of the sudden passing of one of the UK’s top showbiz entertainers, Cilla Black.

I’m not made of stone, but I never really get massively upset when celebrities die, as I understand it’s a part of life and the way of the world, but this news really struck me.

Like most people my age I grew up with Cilla Black dominating Saturday night TV in the 80s with shows like Surprise Surprise and Blind Date. As children, my sisters and I would recreate the shows with our friends while playing together. We were forever re-uniting my mum with items that had mysteriously gone missing in the house only to turn up on ‘Cilla’s Sofa’ in our living room.

I’d be standing on a chair belting out “Surprise, Surprise, the unexpected hits you between the eyes.”

I remember volunteering as a contestant for our high school’s charity Blind Date game as part of our annual summer fundraising day in the hope that I’d be picked to go on a date with the school heartthrob. Sadly, I ended up being picked by the guy everyone called Sir Farts-alot – for obvious reasons.

I wasn’t, however, aware of Cilla’s success as a recording artist before her TV career.

I knew she was a singer but had no idea of her story and her rise to stardom in the 1960s or her connection with The Beatles and Liverpool’s famous Cavern Club until last year, when actress Sheridan Smith gave an outstanding performance playing the lady herself in an ITV drama Cilla.

I was shocked and disappointed that I’d never heard her music and immediately downloaded her hit Anyone Who Had A Heart to learn it myself.

I was touched to learn of the love story between her and her beloved Bobby and how his death in 1999 affected her so badly that she never really got over it in the 17 years that followed.

A No.1 selling artist and one of the biggest selling female artists of the 1960s with a glittering 50 year career in showbusiness under her belt, Cilla definitely left her mark on the world and she will be sorely missed I’m sure.

Thanks for the music, for the hilarious blind dates and surprises, but most of all thanks for a lorra lorra laughs. Ta-ra, chuck, and thank you.

TONIGHT’S the night! My brand new show Michelle McManus Reloaded opens in the Stand in the Square at 7pm and will run for the entire month of August during the Edinburgh Festival.

I previewed the show back in March to a packed out audience at The King’s Theatre in Glasgow and was lucky enough to receive a standing ovation and five star reviews in the press the next day.

It’s the follow up to my original one-woman show, Michelle McManus’ Reality: The Musical, so if you enjoyed the first one I promise you’ll love this, too.

Hope to see you all in the bar outside for a dram afterwards and thank you for your continued support.

Tickets can be purchased here