As a catholic schoolboy I occasionally ventured into the confessional booth – usually as a lesson-avoidance tactic, writes blogger Andy Toft.

Each session began in similar fashion: “Bless me father for I have sinned, it has been a year (that was usually a conservative estimate) since my last confession.”

I am equally ashamed to admit it has been three weeks since my last blog.

And a fair bit has happened since my last outpouring.

The first week’s silence is excusable.

I was on a press trip to Iceland and Orlando – as unlikely a combination as curry and rice pudding but, strangely, it worked.

The idea behind these trips is that tourist boards offer you a short holiday in return for a feature in your publication.

And I’m pleased to say that apart from a flight cancellation on our return journey I had nothing but good things to report.

Iceland was wet, chilly, but rugged and, in places, spectacular.

The highlight was a trip to a warm water spring just outside Reykjavik called the Blue Lagoon – an experience akin to taking a bath on the surface of the moon.

Orlando was blazing hot and fantastic fun.

Highlights included spotting crocodiles on an airboat ride and enjoying the sensation of lift-off at Kennedy Space Centre’s new Shuttle Launch Experience.

I returned from the trip refreshed and on a high.

Back in in England though the mood took a sharp about turn with the break-up of the relationship with my girlfriend.

I don’t want to go on about that, but suffice to say every emotional crossroads needs a soundtrack and I must apologise to my neighbours for their growing familiarity with the Manic Street Preachers’ new album and, in particular, the jaw-droppingly brilliant single Your Love is Not Enough.

(I digress here but amazingly Radio 1 has excluded the Manics from their playlist at a time when they are bang back on form – all words, apart from four letter ones, fail me).

So the last couple of weeks have been consumed by readjusting to being single once more – yes that will be just the ONE chicken portion thank-you butcher.

Workwise, things have been typically varied – a tour of Wolverhampton Art Gallery’s new Welcome exhibition (highly recommended), the Staffordshire Regiment’s final march through Wolverhampton (totally humbling), a video on two Wombourne triathletes (fabulously mad as chairs both) and the Race for Life (moving and inspiring).

So that’s my confession done with.

But the penance has already been served – you simply haven’t known suffering until you have sat through a karaoke rendition of Star-trekking Across the Universe.

Enough said.