I am not sure about that Elizabeth Scurfield, the “holier than thou” voice of Teach Yourself Chinese will be any kind of incentive but our Chinese sessions have definitely spurred me on through this period when my brain kept telling me to turn cabbage!

Those 16 Kungfu patterns, well, I so want to get there and you have been the inspiration there, wushu laoshi, but I may have to settle for that Walking Stick Pattern but I am not going anywhere before I have learnt the broad sword pattern – it might, if all else fails, be a useful was to cut my own head off.

Cheers Neil

There is nothing quite like stripping away the facades of life and looking at what really makes you tick.

There are so many things, if it doesn’t sound too crazy, so many things that I have discovered over this time that could even make me think that brain haemorrhage was worth it.

There is no going back any way and I am more than just merely alive, I am full of life.

Just a pity about the brain! It has done its job, that haemorrhage, and now I just want to get on with things without that pounding in my head.

I suppose the other thing is that we are often defined by illnesses (a DPH once told me that some specialists wouldn’t recognise a real person if they fell over one: they only recognise their ‘bit’ which they understand very well). Maybe that’s why we do say that we are “feeling ourselves again” because we feel less managed by our illnesses.

It’s been a long time, but I’m sure it’s been worth waiting for – and ‘Comedy of Errors’? Well, it ought to be a laugh anyway!