And so it begins…

Hey you, thanks for coming.  Please, make yourself at home – you probably are, after all.  Stick the kettle on, put your feet up, send the kids to bed.  OK?  Relaxed?

Great – and welcome to my blog.  My name’s Nathaniel Cooke, and this blog is intended as a base for my ramblings, musings, thoughts and feelings.  Not all of them, mind you – just the carefully selected ones that are fit for public consumption, and bear some kind of relevance to the topic of this blog.  Which brings me on to my next point – why am I writing this?

Well, did I mention I’ve written a book?  No?  Ah OK, well when you get a chance then why don’t you pop over to the link on the right, and find out a bit more about it – it’s called How Not to Get Hit, and it’s coming out next Spring – I hope you like it.  So, part of this blog is unashamedly self-promotion, raising awareness of what I believe to be a useful tomb for any reader; but also the place where I can earth all the fun little anecdotes, stories and subjects that didn’t quite make the final cut, or I only thought of after the final copy went off to the publisher.  I’ve event got some musings from a previous blog that I’ve cut & pasted straight in, so you don’t have to wait for the next post to have a rummage about inside my head.

But that’s not the only thing I’ll be writing about, as in four weeks time my girlfriend, Jess, and I will be up-rooting, packing our bags and heading to China for a year, for what promises to be the adventure of a lifetime – travelling, teaching English at the University in Mianyang, and devoting a large amount of time to learning martial arts in their spiritual home.  This, then, will be the oracle of our adventures, the place where you can find out what we’ve been doing and, hopefully, share in our experiences.

I hope you like it.