I arrived back home on Sunday morning after five weeks in New Zealand and almost everything has been a shock to the system since then.
The first was when I landed at Heathrow wearing a T-shirt and felt the cold. So I had to go straight to the toilet before picking up my bags to layer up.
Then I was hit by a call from a mate of mine who's a Liverpool supporter who I hadn't spoken to for ages. He asked me, "Did you see the result on Saturday?" I just said, "Yeah, now leave me alone!"
Now I'm back, I'm hoping to go to some
West Ham games but until I do, I couldn't tell you what exactly the problem is at the club.
The situation is abysmal and there just doesn't seem to be any spirit among the players. I don't know if we have the money to buy our way out of trouble and, if we do, who are we going to buy?
The only players we're going to get are ones who are just warming the bench at other clubs.
The build-up to Christmas is make or break. We were in a similar situation a couple of years ago and Gianfranco Zola came in and sorted things out. I'm not so confident that we'll manage to do it again.
Talking of shocks, yesterday I returned to training for the first time since winning the world championships in New Zealand and it was a struggle. And the final surprise of the week was finding out I've put on about a stone in just two weeks holidaying with my girlfriend.
All season I've had to be so careful about what I eat but, for the last couple of weeks, I've just gone for it on our trip around the North and South Island.
I was so unused to relaxing that it took me about four days to properly chill out. We went for a rustic holiday by hiring a campervan called The Vulcan — and it did the job nicely.
We also went on a boat trip to a place called Doubtful Sound, trekked over a glacier and did some wine tasting.
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One of the vineyards out there is called Hunters. I explained that was the reason why I was in New Zealand and it kept the wine flowing! Everywhere we went, there were people telling us about how this and that was to do with the Lord Of The Rings but I'm savvy enough to realise a lot of the time that just wasn't true. Anyway, that didn't matter, it was all part of the experience.
It proved a holiday of a lifetime after what has been an amazing season. Zac Purchase and I won our first event together since Beijing, then dropped all the way to fifth at our next meet — our worst finish as a pair — before winning the world championship.
The media build-up topped anything in Beijing. It was GB against New Zealand and we were seen as the villains who spoiled the party — and we loved doing so!
