What follows is probably interesting to nobody but me and my osteopath, but just in case you are suffering from similar symptoms, I hope this story of how I tracked down my problems helps you find the cause of your pain as well.

The last few months of pain were brought on by an intense period of DIY (painting ceilings!),but I'm a prime candidate for a stiff neck and shoulders regardless: I sit on a computer all day and then hunch over a bicycle in my spare time.

Since August I have been seeing an osteopath on a weekly basis (expensive!), and while he could help bring some relief to my symptoms - stiff neck, limited movement in the shoulders and upper back - every week when I returned for another session we seemed to be back to square one (despite regular stretches and exercises at home as instructed by the osteopath).

I have also received massages, I have seen the GP and been prescribed pain killers - I even attended a Feldenkrais session - but my stiff neck and back have persisted (with varying degrees depending on the day).

It's all about posture

Very early on in my treatment, my osteopath established that it was my posture causing the problem. In response I addressed my posture at work and changed my desk set-up. I also bought a stability disc and a posture correction support strap for my shoulders, all the while carrying on with various stretches.

All of these things helped reduced the pain down to a nagging, recurrent stiffness - which I still have right now.

After shifting his attention from my upper back, my osteopath's next area of concern was my hips - they were regularly diagonal with one side higher than the other, despite my legs both being the same length.

He felt this problem with my hips was the cause of the curvature in my spine and that, in turn, was causing all kinds of spasms in my back muscles. It could also be the cause of my recurrent tight hamstrings.

However, despite straightening out my hips and giving me more exercises, my back pain persisted (as do the tight hamstrings).

Walk this way - over supination

Returning to the osteopath yesterday, my hips were once again out of alignment.

To get to the bottom of it (pardon the pun), he asked me to walk up and down regularly so he could observe me.

What he noticed was this: I tend to walk on the back on my heels and then roll my foot forward on the outside, rather than through the centre of my foot. It was most pronounced on my right side.

This condition is known as either over-supination or under-pronation.

Quite often it's caused by the shape of the foot - a foot with exceptionally high arches.

However, I have neutral, regular arches.

To firmly establish the link between my walk and my wonky hips, my osteopath asked me to perform some lunges.

These lunges showed that while lunging with my left knee forward, I was fine - the left knee sat vertically above my foot and my body was not at all twisted.

However, when lunged forward with my right knee, the knee leant inwards, causing my hips and my upper body to tilt.

What this all now seems to point to is a weakness in my right ankle - several times in the past I have had to wear an ankle support on that ankle, and I think this weakness combined with not wearing particularly supportive shoes has led to me rolling my foot (and my hips!) to compensate.

I now have some new exercises to strengthen my legs and ankles - I'm also thinking of strapping the ankle support back on for a while and buying some footwear (or insoles at least) with greater cushioning for my heels.

It's early days but we finally seem to be on the right track. The human body is an amazing and complex thing - it simply didn't occur to me that excruciating neck pain could be caused by a weakness in my ankle.

Answer to prayer

As I said it's early days, but this looks very much like an answer to prayer: over the last nine days I have been praying a Novena to the Sacred Heart of Jesus for two issues.

I received a text message yesterday morning saying that my prayers for one of the issues had been answered - which only left the healing of my back...then hours later I had this breakthrough of pinpointing the cause.

Praise the Lord!

In the weeks that followed I visited the city with the US Army Corps of Engineers to report on the dewatering efforts for UK engineering magazine New Civil Engineer.

Below are some of the photos I took one week after the flood, and in a follow-up trip one year later.

One week after Katrina

Dick Cheney inspects dewatering efforts

Pumping out the water

Trucks from across the US delivering sandbags

Chinook lifting sandbags to plug flood wall breaches

A dead fish on a dried-out street

One year after Katrina

Building new flood gates

Repairing the roof of the New Orleans Superdome

This week my little brother Nick married the lovely Stacey at a civil ceremony in Canterbury.

I was honoured to be asked to give a reading on the big day, perhaps even write something. I came up with the below poem about love.

While the wedding was a non-religious ceremony, it is impossible for me to speak about love except in the terms of Jesus' love for me - it is the love that guides and underpins every relationship in my life.

So you'll see from the hyperlinks below that this poem, ahem, "borrows" heavily from the Gospels, Prophets, Saints and other great Christian lyricists.

Beginning/End

In the beginning there was love
Love formed you in the womb
And brought you out into the world
Love held your hand as you took your first steps
As a boy and as a girl
Yes in the beginning there was love

And now you're beginning there is love
Love brought you to this room
And it will carry you through every day
The Word will hold you together
Through the storm and through the spray
In each new beginning there is love

And as life goes on you'll find,
Love's not jealous, it's only kind
And as life goes on you'll see
It's only in giving that we receive

Because in the end there is love
The force that flung the stars into space
Is here today in this place
From life's first cry to final breath
Love is the place we find our rest
Our hope in the end is love.