I’m back in England early this year for a couple or reasons I either cannot or will not talk about here. What I will say, however, is that my anxiety and panic attacks have all but disappeared and I am getting my life back on track. This means that I am working on various projects including the next books. Again I must print out and read again stuff I did before (mostly last year), to get it running in my head again and get writing. Also other things…

While I was out on Crete I kept to a pretty severe exercise regimen. At the start of the year I was walking in the mountains from 8 to 12 kilometres every day. As the temperature rose I turned to kayaking and swimming and most days was kayaking 10K and/or swimming 2K. Back here I decided I needed something to replace that so for the first time in many years joined a gym.

I told the guy who did my induction what I had been doing before which is probably why each of the four circuits I am taking on (one each day) start with 20 minutes on a cross trainer and end with 2000M on a rowing machine, with lots of work with weights between. The induction lasted 2 hours and I felt shell-shocked afterwards. The next day I did my first circuit and found that using the weights rendered me incapable of doing the two sets of 25 standard press-ups and two sets of 25 press-ups with the hands directly under the body. I managed 14 standard press-ups and gave up. Giggling.

After doing this I came back home and felt energised. Amongst other things I wrote 1,000 words – this was all good. The next day I found it difficult to get out of chairs and there were few parts of my body I could touch without them hurting. Today I did my second circuit. This was hard but I managed it all. Afterwards I sorted out some bits and pieces in my local town and returned to a big breakfast. My body then demanded an hour and half of sleep but now, as you see, I’m back to writing.

I should settle into this over the next few weeks … either that or I’ll have a heart attack on the cross-trainer. But now it is time for me to print up the start of a book…