I’m sitting in Edinburgh, coffee in hand, watching the steam curl lazily into the grey morning air.
In a little while, I’ll be jumping on a show with Peter Sawkins the 2020 winner of The Great British Bake Off.
Truth be told, I’m no magician in the kitchen. My baking résumé is limited to a few half-successful banana breads.
But today isn’t about mastery; it’s about enjoying the moment. And hopefully, about making something edible.
It’s a quiet, warm scene this morning but the week that led here was anything but.
When you were reading last week’s column, I was sitting on the first tee at Newtonmore Golf Club, about to take part in the Golf Week Open.
I hadn’t played there since 1994. Just saying that year out loud feels surreal; it’s a whole other lifetime ago.
The weather was gentle, the course familiar, and there was a strange comfort in being back.
It wasn’t my best golf, though. The rib’s still broken made every swing a cautious negotiation between power and pain.
But seeing old friends again, the kind of friends who greet you like you’ve never been away, was worth more than a million hole-in-ones.
Read more:
-
Russell Martin in Rangers transfers hint and what he will prioritise
-
Brendan Rodgers bristles at Shin Yamada question as he explains Celtic selections
I carded a 102, which, if I’m honest, reflects my current game pretty accurately.
Not a disaster, but not my finest work either.
Still, the number didn’t matter. Being there, with those people, in that place, made it feel like I’d stepped back into a piece of my own history.
Monday brought a very different kind of challenge. Storms rolled over Aviemore, and I spent the morning in the gym, keeping it light to avoid aggravating my ribs.
Then I sat at home, parked beside my phone, waiting for a call that would determine the shape of the months ahead.
It’s a familiar scene for me after 15 years of living with these kinds of medical check-ins. You wait, you distract yourself badly, you check the time every few minutes, and then you wait some more.
This was no ordinary phone call. It was my surgeon, with the results of my latest scans.
The difference between “green light” and “red light” is the difference between planning the next chapter and bracing for the fight of your life again.
By 5 p.m., no call had come. I was shaking. No matter how many times I’ve been through this, it doesn’t get easier. Then the phone rang.
Read more:
-
Penge keeps the head and recovers from an opening eight with fine repair job
-
Forrest on fire as Scot shoots course record to seize lead at the Nexo Championship
It was a junior surgeon, speaking in that precise, polite tone that surgeons seem to have mastered. She told me they were very happy with the scans. The radiotherapy had worked. Again.
Green light.
More time.
I cried. Not the kind of crying you can dress up with a joke afterwards the deep, gut-level release that comes when you realise you’ve been holding your breath for weeks without noticing.
I sat there thinking: I have more time. More opportunities. Be where your feet are.
That last bit ‘be where your feet are’ has become something of a mantra for me. It’s a reminder to stay grounded in the present, not lost in the “what ifs” of the past or the “what nexts” of the future.
How did I celebrate? Not with champagne or cake, but with two hours on the driving range the next day.
I wanted to feel the rhythm of the club again, the small click of the ball off the face, the arc against the evening sky. It felt like breathing again after holding it for too long.
Then it was onto the train to Edinburgh for Friday’s recording with Peter.
Standing on that range, I caught myself smiling at nothing in particular. Golf has become that strange, beautiful escape for me a way to step outside the medical appointments and scan results and all the noise that comes with them. It’s a game, yes, but it’s also my therapy.
The ribs will take a few more weeks of careful rehab. Nothing dramatic just basic training, steady progress, a focus on fundamentals.
In some ways, it’s exactly the same process as improving my golf: small adjustments, patience, not trying to fix everything in one swing.
There’s a kind of magic in weeks like this. The kind that start with uncertainty and end with gratitude. One moment you’re staring out the window, bracing for bad news, the next you’re given the gift of time and with it, the reminder to use it well.
We can’t stockpile days. We can’t bank them for later. But we can choose how we show up for the ones we have.
For me, that means more mornings like this one, warm coffee in Edinburgh, ready to chat about baking despite my lack of skill, grateful for the company and the conversation. More afternoons on driving ranges chasing the pure sound of a well-struck shot.
It also means carrying that phrase be where your feet are into everything. Not because I’ve mastered it (I haven’t), but because life has a way of jolting you back into it when you forget.
This week could have gone very differently. But it didn’t. And that’s the point.
The storms in Aviemore have passed.
The scan is clear. The ribs will heal.
And I get to keep showing up for all of it, the golf, the rehab, the shows, the quiet coffees before the day begins.
Whatever’s ahead, I’m here for it.
Be where your feet are.
