In less than a week, I've experienced profound weather extremes. Put a glass under the hot tap and then straight after under the cold, it's odds on, it'll crack. Maybe this is why I'm feeling so physically shattered. Anyway back to the original topic.

Every day in Malaysia was scorching, but what could you expect from a country that's slap bang up against the Equator, and where most afternoons, there's a thunderous rainstorm on a monumental, majestic scale. Clouds detonating, blazing fangs of lightening ripping the skies open wide, heavy, warm rain, fat drops of it smashing against buildings and drumming on the road surface.

Whereas now, I'm at the other end of the thermometer; temperature is barely scratching zero with any regularity, and it ain't rain, it's the thin squishy gruel of sleet and rain that masquerades as snow in London.

Gimme back that warm, perfumed rain, and those close but not quite apocalyptic tropical weather patterns any time.

One of my friends told me in bold terms that I'm "...hellbent and determined to get robbed on every continent" after I'd told him that e-mail access was hard to find in the part of Malaysia I'd been travelling in and this was why his mails had gone unanswered.

Robbed? Nope. More determined to have an encounter with the immigration authority of as many countries as possible. That's what it seems to be.

I noticed after I'd entered Malaysia that no one had stamped my passport. Thus making me technically an illegal immigrant. A condition, a state, understandably, which I'm always anxious to avoid.

So the following day I spent nearly six hours in the head office of the Malaysian Immigration Authority getting myself legitimised. One of the handful of westerners amongst the thousands of hard-working Bangladeshi, Cambodian and Indonesian house-maids and labourers all trying to get their work papers in order

I did get a visa stamped in to my passport eventually. Burden lifted, shoulders unbent; me a properly documented individual. Pity it was the wrong type of visa. I did n't find this out until I handed over my passport when I was leaving the country.

Had yet another lengthy conversation with another immigration officer this time at Kuala Lumpur airport, getting everything unravelled.

This makes the fifth country (Argentina, Italy, Slovenia and the US of A) where I've had to explain who I am, why I am there etc, etc...All of this, well to a sensible person at least, would say time to jack it in, but these boots are made for walking.

Break in service. I'm going travelling for a few weeks. If I can then I'll pop a post in whenever I can otherwise normal service resumes Monday, November 29.

Now in that interview did I come over as professional and steady, the rock around which the wild waves break; or did I sound more like a Faith healer " Believe in me, trust the vision, it will surely come to pass"; or did I put on the routine of a double glazing salesman working on a commission only basis, and if I did n't nail that sale the kids go another day without supper ?

Should n't really rake through the embers of a cold interview, but the further I am from the event I do wonder exactly what impression I made. Hey ho.

Something odd is happening over in Shepherd's Bush. Nothing unusual there: odd and Shepherd's Bush are two words that fit snugly in the same sentence, it's that kind of place. But this is something else.

All evening there's been this strange sound of groaning metal, like the noise a sinking ship makes as the seams start to pop and the rivets fly out as it turns turtle; or for anyone who watches sci-fi horror flicks where some mammoth Alien thing is eating Manhattan then it's the unearthly moaning they always generate in superabundance.

Yet Shepherd's Bush is neither a drowning ship nor Manhattan, so what's going on, and why does it seem to be getting progressively closer to where I live?

There's a looming need for me to look presentable coming up. Meaning I have to sacrifice my normal thrown together jeans and whatever shirt is n't too wrinkled look for something different. This time I have to be Mr Business.

So I disinterred my suit out of my wardrobe, checked for any moth damage, and had it properly cleaned.

Now I have to say this: do I scrub up well in a suit, or what. I look completely different. Like professional.

Sayonara to the tugboat captain chic, adieu to the man about to visit his probation office look. That's gone. All change. Time for the man about the City sartorial buzz.

Whether I'll be so charged when I come back from the assessment centre - the compulsion to be suited and properly booted - or when I return from holiday, is moot. My suit could have a sibling, or it remains an orphan at the back of the wardrobe. Watch this space.

Personality tests are pure catnip for me. Even the scent of one has me panting.

And when it's one that might just affirm something I've tantalised myself thinking I could actually have, then everything gets dropped, all extraneous events filtered out and I plunge right in.

Picture my excitement then as I idly scrolled through the firm's intranet this lunchtime and saw a link to an "How creative are you" pop quiz.

Really no truly creative person bothers doing these. I know I've met them and some are friends.

Either they're driving away at something, pushing boundaries back, borne along by the flow; or they're adrift in quiet melancholy - "my mind has one idea, my hands another" as a very gifted painter friend of mine put it to me last week.

Nevertheless wannabes, the ambitious but sans the spark people, well, we crowd round these tests like flies around roadkill. Can't get enough of them.

So I pushed back my sleeves, settled back and let the pop test do the talking. I'm 84% creative. Now to turn that stat into action.

Feel the force.

The wind is licking against the windows this evening. There are strong slaps of air and there's that chirring sound of leaves rustling on trees. Sounds of a perfect autumn evening. For me that is.

I know too well that autumn warms the hearts of less people than it's cheerier cousins, spring or summer.

Winter save for deep-dyed Capricorn goats like me and ski-nuts is less loved than reviled: the orphan season, billy no mates, the lonely kid walking home to an empty cold house.

But I love it, I relish winter; inhaling sharp, flinty air on long walks; the strong, clear outlines of leafless trees against menthol blue skies; snow, crisp layers of snow dropped over night. Can't beat any of it. Why resist.