Hotels are either wonderful or horrible places dependent on your circumstances. For me, they are desperately lonely.

When I’m planning my trips and thinking about it, I think of the time away from home as a chance to have some the solitude with time to sleep to recover from exhaustion (a full day’s work and a 250 mile drive today) and stress. As soon as I walk through the door, I feel utterly miserable about being so far from all I care about.

It's ironic that to get to a time when I can be at home more often, I've had to put myself through four months of living hell to get there. I know it's finite but that doesn't help when I'm virtually out for the count all of the time and so irrational about my judgements and decisions through tiredness.

The worst bit is supper – there is something completely depressing about eating alone and especially in a hotel restaurant. The places I stay don’t have room service so my supper most weeknights is a sandwich and some fruit in my room. Tonight is no exception.

So, here I am, doing it all again, back in the fray. Here to take another battering. Ding ding, round 453 – how many blows will I take this week? Will it be a TKO or just a few bruises and a black eye? Time will tell.

Last year, my folks were making me happy and two years ago, Arch was analysing a group discussion.