Lord above, it's been a busy 36 hours!

Headed down to Cardiff yesterday to meet Welsh First Minister Rhodri Morgan and Health Minister Jane Hutt at Rookwood Hospital, where I'm being treated. They requested the visit after seeing the article I wrote for the Limbless Association.

It was a bloody long drive just to shake a few hands and smile politely but it's all good for raising the profile of the hospital. I was the token "service user" as NHS-types insist on calling patients. While I was in Cardiff I also took delivery of the copy from my next Guest Writer. It's an absolute winner, but I'm going to hold it back and publish it tomorrow....believe me, you won't be disappointed.

Then back to London this morning to give a lecture on working in hostile environments to journalists on the Writing International News course organised by the Reuters Foundation.

I did my now familiar (and soon to become very tedious) party trick of ramming home the anti-landmine message by whipping off my artificial leg. No matter how many times I do it, it never seems to fail. I had a couple of the participants in tears, although it may have been that their eyes were watering due to the smell emanating from my sweaty stump sock.

On the work front, my latest despatch for BBC News Online has been published here. The South Wales Echo have picked up on my return to work (thankfully the online version of the story doesn't include the frightening picture used in print) -- as have The Guardian, who have clearly been reading the blog!