KERPOW!

Ohhhhhhhhh, I loved it. We did our first class where we hit stuff and kicked stuff.

It was excellent. I love kung fu. I haven't mastered the techniques by any means – it's very early days – but feel I am improving slowly and surely. And I liked it when a couple of the blokes looked all surprised when a girlie smashed her foot into the pad with a pure look of - erm - madness, perhaps? - in her eyes.

Our instructor, N, combines strictness and discipline with approachability. He has such intensity in his eyes at times that you just know that if someone seriously crossed him, a penetrating look would be more than enough to have an effect, and he wouldn't need to resort to moving a muscle or raising his voice.

I'm on such a high now, if aching like heck. Feeling positive is an achievement after the day I had – doing two people's jobs, commuting across London, I'm as tired as fuck and don't have time to eat properly.

S's fractured finger is still too tender for him to have joined me at kung fu (it's a cricket injury), so he missed out on what was a brilliant class. He looked very tired when I got home and said he felt grim and couldn't imagine how I must feel, having been tired for as long as I have. It meant a great deal to hear that tonight. I can be someone else entirely when I am at my most exhausted. And he is patient when I am not.