The NHS (Royal United Hospital in Bath and Yatton Keynell surgery) have done great stuff over the couple of weeks since my injury, and I am now very much 'walking wounded'.

I am so lucky to have had some wonderful help from doctors and nurses, physios, and especially my lovely wife Philippa, who has been an absolute brick. And I am so very grateful for the hundreds of Get Well Soon messages. They seem to be working!

Nonetheless, I was not initially amused when the whips got in touch to tell me they really needed me back in Parliament for the vote on the Budget last Thursday. "What a bore", I thought. But in the event it was good to have a target and a bit of self-discipline. So I picked myself up, brushed myself down, and started all over again.

So I got myself a local helper/driver, Laura, and struggled up to Parliament in good time to do their bidding. The whips offered to 'nod me though' - a procedure under which an ill MP can vote not in person, but by being interviewed anywhere on the Parliamentary estate by Government and Opposition whips. I declined their kind offer. “If I have to be there, I will jolly well walk through the voting lobby with everyone else," I said. And I did, without mishap. It brought (wholly unjustified) sympathy and praise from all, including the PM, who was mildly amused that I should have been injured on her private staircase. "No PMQs next week, James" she quipped, “so you could have lain there undiscovered for two weeks." It would have done wonders for my slimming.

Anyhow, having got vertical I was pleased to be able to go to Bristol to do some TV and radio, and then Malmesbury Abbey for the lovely Dorothy House concert by Blake, Parliament on Monday and Tuesday to join the Speaker and Lord Speaker laying wreaths at the newly refurbished War Memorial, and a couple of other London engagements. Then a couple of days off to prepare for full day of constituency engagements on Friday, surgeries on Saturday, and Remembrance Sunday in Lyneham and Malmesbury (including the memorial beacons in the evening).

So maybe the whips have done me a favour by a little bit of incentive to get back on my feet and get on with my job. I very much respect - and agree with - Tracey Crouch for having resigned over a needless six-month delay to the reforms to Fixed Odds Betting Terminals. That was poor whipping indeed.

The rumoured Brexit deal that keeps the whole of the UK in some kind of Customs Union will merit careful and sceptical scrutiny. The whips will need to do better than that and use all of their whipping/HR/political skills if they are to get this putative Brexit deal through Parliament.