While you queue you can stare into his earhole and try and blot out the heat, the half a dozen people pressed up against you and the swarm of locals that scurry back and forth selling ice creams to sweaty tourists.  However, it is not until you have made the journey down the winding cliff-carved steps, past the shrines of figures with their features weathered away, that you can begin to comprehend the enormity of the seated Buddha of Leshan.

This photograph taken by Frosty cannot do him justice and, while this Wikipedia picture may give you more of an idea of what I’m writing about, nothing can quite compare with being there.

This 233-feet-tall sandstone-carved sculpture in Leshan nestles comfortably at the heart of a mountain range and gazes across the water to the spot where the Minjiang, Dadu and Qingyi rivers meet.

The serene expression on the Buddha’s face suggests a spiritual and mental level that I am unlikely ever to attain; Gingell is of the opinion that I’ve got more in common with the giant teddy bear in Supernatural, while Baines compares me with Lolcats.

The reason I’m reminiscing about travelling is because it’s one of the many things I mention on this blog and yet never fully explain.  This is probably alright if you know me but otherwise it must be confusing.  It is for this reason that it makes sense to summarise events so far and then later in the week I can glance over my to do list and write about the future.

Last year I got thrown out of a house and, while I don’t want to get into details, it put me off writing for a while.  If I was in a bad place, my degree was in a worse one and so there was nothing to hold me back when I was invited to go backpacking around Asia.

From a narrative perspective it’d be great if it was China that made me pick up a pen again and it’d be even better if Andrew’s Travel Blog was what inspired me to create Scribbleboy.co.uk.  Unfortunately it’s not that simple.  The screenwriters are really going to struggle when they try and turn this one into a movie.

A person I’d barely spoken to invited me to her graduation.  While uni staff  handed out degrees my friend’s friend’s mother (you got that?) was being prodded by the Holy Spirit.  This led to a situation later where I had no choice but to kneel in prayer while she spoke above me in tongues.  That is what got me writing again, I wrote five whole pages to cover that handful of awkward minutes.

I wrote the same number of pages to cover the six weeks I spent in China, Tibet and Hong Kong, and none of them are worthy of this blog.  If I were to return and do some more background reading I might be able to crank out something meaningful but on this occasion I cannot compete with Frosty’s comprehensive (both in terms of words and photographs) coverage of our trip.

Returning to England I found myself without a degree and it wasn’t long before I was evicted from the sofa where I was living.  I saw a phone number in a window, called it and was texted the addresses for two properties with spare rooms.  The first was populated by three smokers and the bedroom was so small it would have been a toss up between burning all my stuff or not sleeping for a year and using the room for storage.

The second house was, and still is, the nicest student house I have seen.   I am judging it by normal standards and not by my own; I consider natural light in the living room and carpets free from broken glass and chicken bones to be luxuries.  It is a house that always seems clean and has a bathtub that doesn’t leak.

Within ten minutes of looking around the property I had already made myself at home.  Moving in with strangers is always a gamble but this time it seems to have paid off.  Gingell and Baines are two of the best housemates I have ever known.  They came to uni to study, have never been to the LRV and silence doesn’t make them feel uncomfortable, by which I mean, they are completely unlike anyone I know.  It is this fact that has made it so rewarding for me to get to know them.

I have avoided dedicating a post to them for a while; writing sincere niceties about people has never come naturally to me.  I will attempt it soon.

And so I moved in.  I moved in the crates of CDs, the mini library, the typewriter, the potted plant,  an oversized Chinese lantern and stacks of newspaper clippings.  And I slipped back into the unmotivated rut that I’ve never truly escaped in five years.

[An 800 odd word summary and all I've succeeded in summarising is what took place prior to me creating this blog.  Genius.  I've created a summary prequel.  Think I might have to break this "summary" down into three parts.  Part two will cover the period from November 2008 to now and part three will cover the future.  Feel free to chip in with your own suggestions and abuse.

EDIT: (2:30am) I realise I've missed a simple explanation of my degree status, ideally when you've read all three parts you shouldn't have any questions about what I've been doing, what I'm going to do and the purpose of this blog.]