MY left leg looks like a block of stilton but ask me if I care.

The sun has come out and so have the shorts. Don’t we all feel better for those long sunshiney hours and some short sleeves?

I’ve just had a bit of a holiday and though you wouldn’t mistake me for a walnut, I no longer look like a milk bottle that’s lost its way home.

Can’t lie out in it like my mum and dad used to do on the beach from sunrise to sunset. I get too bored but it’s been wonderful to get away and down tools.

I managed to come back slightly lighter than I went as well, but we did walk a lot to burn off the pizzas (why do they always taste so much better on Italian soil?).

We managed to catch the highlights of Callum Simpson’s brilliant fight on satellite TV when we were away because we would have loved to have been there in person for it.

What a stonker it was. And so refreshing to see someone who is very proud to say where he comes from and not fudge around it pretending he’s from a picturesque fishing village near Harrogate.

Others should take note not to ‘use’ Barnsley, only when it benefits them when it’s where you come from and you should be proud.

Nice to be back, even if the dog was a bit overawed to see us and no sooner had I put all the holiday washing in the machine than I was vaxxing ‘an accident’ out of the carpet.

All Cinderellas have to take off the ballgown at some point though, don’t they? Ho hum. Back to the grindstone with a bump.

I went to a talk when I was on my jollies given by a very inspirational man called Ben McBean who lost his left arm and right leg in a landmine accident in Afghanistan when he was a 21-year old marine.

Up to that point in his life, he had presumed he was invincible.

He’s still not out of the woods mentally with his experience but I have never seen such resilience in my life as I have and there was barely a dry eye in the house – grown men in tears of admiration.

I took from his talk two very important points. One: that too often we think of things as ‘hard’ when in fact they are just ‘new’ – as in him having to learn to walk with a false leg (learning to drive, feels like ‘hard’ but it isn’t once you get past the ‘new’).

The year after he got his prosthetic, he ran a marathon, despite his skin graft coming off miles from the end, but he wouldn’t be beaten.

And two: that there are two types of pain, the physical sort and the other sort that feels like pain, but it’s not going to kill you and with EFFORT it can be overcome.

With what he has come through, his talk should be available to every schoolchild everywhere to introduce them to resilience in a world that seems sadly lacking in it. I feel my life was instantly richer for having crossed paths with him. Look him up, please.

I will be doing a book signing of my latest paperback at Mike’s Famous Bookstall (at the top of the escalator in the market) tomorrow (Saturday) morning between 10-12 if you want to get yourself a new book for relaxing with in the garden or for your jolly holidays.

Mike usually has loads of my back catalogue as well and lots of other people’s books too so do come along and say hello.