Hi Everyone and welcome to my website - this is my first blog which I hope you'll enjoy reading!

When I left Bali I was so looking forward to getting home but first I had the journey from hell to face. I flew from Denpensar to Kuala Lumpur on the Friday night after missing the cut in the Indonesian Open. It was a 3 hour flight up to KL with Malaysian Airlines. I didn't do much on the flight apart from try to reflect on the week and why I missed the cut. I try to do something like that when i've missed the cut so I can work on things for the following week. I worked out that I wasn't getting the ball close enough to the hole with my approach shots and was struggling to hole 30 footers for birdie and that's what I had to work on on my two week off.

When I finally got to KL I had to go and get my new boarding card from Emirates but because I had changed my flight from the Sunday night they decided they were going to charge me £430 for the change. I was having none of it. Not being in the best of moods I argued the case and called my travel company who tried to sort out the problem. I waited for over an hour and a half before the girl noticed I was in business class and didn't have to pay anything at all in the end. I got myself in the Emirates lounge for a quick drink to calm down before getting on the 7 hour flight to Dubai. I have had 5 long haul flights since January 5th so I've watched everything I wanted to watch on the plane so I wasn't looking forward to getting on this flight and even the next one. I thought I would get my head down and get some sleep. I didn't seem to be asleep long before we started our descent into Dubai. I couldn't wait to get off the plane and get into the Emirates lounge in Dubai so I could have a shower. I had about a two hour wait in Dubai before my final flight back to London Heathrow.

Chris Wood was on this flight with me so at least we could have a chat about the last three weeks. We flew back on the new Airbus A380. I've been on it 6 times now and it's a beautiful aircraft. There is so much room on it and the flatbed seats are so comfortable. There is a lovely seating area and bar at the back of the plane where you can sit and have a drink so Chris and I sat back there most of the flight. We talked about most things including The Open from last year where he won the silver medal for leading amateur. We were soon over northern Europe and starting our descent into Heathrow. When we had landed and we were walking off the plane I knew I hadn't got long to go before I was in my car and heading up the M40 towards home to see my wife Denise and my little girl Lucy. That two hour drive seemed longer than the flight I'd just come off but I was soon pulling onto my driveway and it was great to see Denise and Lucy waiting for me.

The two weeks I've had off so far have been great, I've spent so much quality time with Denise and Lucy. I've taken Lucy to her little gym a few times and we've been swimming and we've fed the ducks at our local pond and we even went down to the Monkey Forest at Trentham Gardens. Lucy loves going there because you can walk within the enclosure and feed the monkeys so she gets all excited when they come over to her.

Time off from golf is very precious and apart from spending time with my family I love going to watch Stoke City as much as I can. They've been doing well last few week so I hope the can stay up in The Premiership where I think they belong. I've also spent quite a lot of time these past few weeks working out in the gym with my personal trainer Clive Hevey. It's so much better to have a personal trainer because he pushes me to work harder.

I've also been practicing quite a bit at my new course, Wychwood Park near Crewe in Cheshire. Everyone has welcomed me with open arms there and I'm very grateful to them for letting me use their facilities whenever I want. They have a great practice ground and short game area and I'm able to hit my own TaylorMade balls and the guys there will pick them up and clean them for me.

Well my two weeks off is nearly at an end and I've loved my time at home but it's time now to get my head down and get back into tournament mode. I'm heading to Madeira on Monday night for The Madeira Island Open then from there to Seville and from there to Portugal. There is a week off after that because of The Masters which I love watching. I don't watch much golf on tv unless one of my friends is doing well or it's a Major. there is nothing better that watching the Majors on tv.

Well I hope you have enjoyed reading my first blog.

Until next time, Simon.