If he's not on Homes Under The Hammer, he's on Match of the Day or doing football commentary on any number of channels, or appearing on Richard Osman's House of Games show (on which he didn't actually cover himself with glory). He is also a keen percussionist and actually invented a drum (yes you read that correctly).
Add to that the fact that he played 70 times for Norwich City and you can see that we need to love Dion.
But that's not why we love him. We love him because he's a damn fine human being. He's funny and enthusiastic, humble and intelligent (although his appearance on House of Games might suggest otherwise). His deprecating humour came through when I was watching an edition of Homes Under The Hammer on Sunday. I was doing other things at the time and just had the telly on as background.
Dion referred to something as "Quintessentially English" and then gave a grin and said "yes that's right you've just heard a former footballer use a word with five syllables."
But forget all that. We really love Dion because of one evening many years ago when he was the speaker at an event organised by the local SANDS charity. This is a charity supporting those who have lost children to stillbirth and neonatal death. Our first grandson Oliver was stillborn. It still breaks my heart when I think of that.
Dion could have charged for speaking at that evening but he gave his services free. He told us all that he was only too happy to help the charity in any way he could. He then proceeded to produce a bag full of footballs, offered to sign all of them at £50 a time. That in itself raised hundreds of pounds. We bought one for our grandson and Dion asked us about him and wrote something along the lines of "To Elliot - always do your best. Love Dion." I will always remember that. As they say often it's the little things in life that leave the biggest impact.
So now whenever I see Dion on television I get a rosy glow knowing that he is one damn fine human being.
* * *
I need to speak about Three Holes. No I'm not referring to the potholes on the A11 (that would be 300 Holes) but a village on the Norfolk Cambridgeshire border that I have never visited.
When I was working for the Police there was a standing joke that if you did anything wrong you would be posted to Three Holes which, at the time, had a police station. I have no idea whether it still does but I can't imaging the officers who were actually stationed there liked the reference to the place.
But that's beside the point. I can't remember how or why the village came into a conversation a few days ago but, as usual with my inquiring mind, I wanted to find out how it came across its name. Searching the internet came up with very little apart from the fact that it was previously known as Wadingstow which seems to be a much nicer name. Apparently it was a popular place for fishing with anglers coming from Yorkshire on a regular basis.
My travelling companion on many of my historical trips is dear friend John Head and he knows lots about lots. He informed me its called Three Holes because the bridge has three holes (simples as the meerkats would say). John sent me a photograph as well to prove this and it's attached to this blog.
So the name thing was easily explained. Lots of places are named after a physical feature although there is a road in Norfolk called Sluts Hole Lane and I can't for the life of me think where that name comes from. Apparently there's a Minge Lane in Worcester and that made I laugh. The problem with Sluts Hole Lane, which is near Besthorpe and pretty close to where I live, was that people kept stealing the road sign. I must check whether it's still there.
I have written in the past about the previous name of Opie Street in Norwich. Decorum prevents me from printing its former name but you can find it if you are interested by a bit of Internet detection.
I understand there is a place in the Midlands called Home Recycling Town but it's a bit of a dump.
Myself and John had a lovely drive through areas of West Norfolk that were new to me. We were on our way to Grimston for lunch and went through Dereham, Gressenhall (I only knew this in the past from the museum, but it's a pretty little place), Litcham and Massingham. I made a mental note to retrace these steps and take my camera on a day out.
We were heading along a very straight road that had some rolling hills on either side and we both agreed that it reminded us of Nidderdale in Yorkshire (That's a bit of a joke aimed at one of my readers who I know will appreciate the humour).
And that really is enough for today.