I HAD almost forgotten what spending a few days at home felt like, but this week I've been forced to jog my memory.
I didn't particularly want to sit staring at four walls, but I had no choice after two heavy crashes and a couple of injuries picked up in the Latvian GP at the weekend.
Thankfully my head has not been a concern because the effects of concussion wore off quickly, but the bruising and pain from my left shoulder was really worrying me.
I've been undergoing physio all weak to try and increase the movement in the shoulder and thankfully it has worked really well - well enough for me to return to racing tonight in the Elite League Riders' Championship.
I didn't finally decide to compete in the ELRC until late last night, but I feel there are a lot of plusses for riding.
It is a great chance to test my fitness rather than jumping in at the deep end for Panthers at Lakeside tomorrow and the opportunity of picking up a big prize is difficult to resist.
King's Lynn is a place I really like to race and if they can prepare the sort of excellent track they did for the Best Pairs event earlier in the season, it should be a cracking night.
It would be nice to bring another title back to Peterborough, but I will be just as happy to come through the meeting will no ill effects.
Having a break from racing is never a bad thing and I am hoping the past few days will actually benefit me during the rest of the season.
But there is no chance of easing myself back into racing gradually.
From tonight I will be in action every day until the Polish GP at Bydgoszcz next Saturday. SOME people might think I'm bonkers to say this... but I really believe we can win Lakeside.
I can assure you that the bang to my head has not sent me mad and I know we got stuffed down there earlier in the season, but that was then and this is now.
The presence of new signing Christian Hefenbrock in the Panthers team has made me really confident of being able to do the business down at Purfleet against his former club and one of our bogey teams.
Obviously we cannot demand too much from Christian in his first meeting in England for a few months, but I really think he can be our trump card.
From what I can gather, he was pretty unlucky to lose his Lakeside team spot in the first place after putting in some decent scores.
A rider always wants to do well when he returns to his former club and I am sure the fact that Christian is going back to Lakeside will be a big plus for us.
THE new September averages come into effect when we go to Eastbourne on Saturday - and for once that actually means a change to our team.
Danny King is the man moving upwards from reserve after an awesome run of results, while Piotr Swiderski goes down to partner Christian Hefenbrock.
Danny has been absolutely fantastic for the past few weeks and climbing into the main body of the team is nothing less than he deserves.
He has been a hero on far too many occasions to mention here and I don't see why he can't carry on the same form in his new position.
We are lucky to have plenty of strength in depth and that means we have another quality rider in 'Swider' going down to reserve.
He has proven in the past that he can score really well there for us and I'm really optimistic about the rest of the season.
I hope to start it with two away wins and six points in the space of two days.