(CONTINUED FROM "DIARY OF A MADWOMAN") *A miserable diary for a troubled fortnight - but there is a much more positive one around the corner. The traumotologist ordered me to keep to "a blanket regime" for ten days to allow the concussion to mend. I couldn't go outside, watch television or even read. Work was out of the question. Instead of getting dressed for the office on Friday morning I fluffed up my pillows on the sofa-bed, sorted the four different types of pills I had to take into a row on top of the piano, and tried to think as little as possible about the witch who had organised for this nightmare to happen. Jared, Joel and Ana were all at work during the day so I only had Puppy, the boisterous cat with the ... read more

This is my first diary for a fortnight, because on the night that my last one was published I suffered concussion while Ana and I were moving to a new flat, and since then I have been too ill to write. At 4 the next morning we finally arrived at Jared's apartment in Livoberezhna. I was told by a traumotologist to rest in bed for the next ten days and to sleep as much as possible, but a sequence of events led to Ana being put in prison for a night, and a woman planning to kill us. Since then it has been hard to close my eyes at all. My next two diaries will explain everything, but they need time and energy to be written properly. Three days of peace gave me some time to ... read more

Last week I went with my new colleagues to watch my first game of football in Ukraine. A magazine later asked me to write an article about it, and I've included it below. My Article... Ukraine is not the greatest footballing nation in Europe; but no-one has told that to the people here. The game gets people talking and arguing, just as it does anywhere else. Fate has been very kind to me this month: not only is my new job in the centre of a fascinating, football-mad little city on the River Dnieper, but my office is only a two minute walk from the impressive Olympic stadium. Better still, there was a Champions League tie to look forward to the week after I arrived - Dynamo Kyiv vs. Sporting Lisbon, with third place and a ... read more

When I came back into the room she had a needle in her right arm, just a few inches above her wrist. Ana had woken up early this morning in awful pain, and phoned for a doctor when she couldn't bear it any more. I found her sitting against the edge of the bed, crying. I had only left to make the doctor a mug of tea in the kitchen, but the lady had already banged a nail into the bedroom wall, attached a long piece of string to it, and fashioned a drip out of a transparent packet of medicine inside a small green supermarket carrier bag. The blood had drained from Ana's face, her forehead was hot to touch and she couldn't move. After the first packet had run into her veins she still ... read more

Anyone arriving in Ukraine this evening with preconceptions about what being in Eastern Europe feels like would have had each of them confirmed during their drive to the centre alone. Low, dark grey clouds lashed rain onto the windscreen of my dilapidated taxi, its windscreen wipers creaked in time with the soft folk music playing on the radio, dirty blocks of flats flanked both sides of the motorway, and the only specks of colour to be found in the dismal outskirts of Kyiv came from hundreds of billboards, advertising everything from cigarettes to the upcoming elections. My driver was good value, as they always seem to be here. He gave me a cheerful rant about the congestion during the evening rush hour and the poor state of the countries' roads, and in spite of them both ... read more