For those with refined literary tastes and a disposition towards the witty, insightful and well crafted, my last two weeks of being incommunicado will have been a welcome reprieve. Unfortunately for you, I, having just had two weeks rest and relaxation, am now back in the saddle, with a song in my heart, a pen in my hand and a grim determination to mix my metaphors.

As the old refrain goes: ‘what a difference a day makes’, and nowhere is this better illustrated than the beginning of my week. Monday found me enjoying the Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy, dining at the Ritz with the future Mrs Hann and submersing myself in sumptuous snifters with a group of chums in Piccadilly’s finest watering holes. If not quite Dionysian in its revelry, it would have certainly earned a stern reproach from the paternal grandmother, had she still been available in terrestrial format.

Anyway, as you have probably guessed within twenty-four hours I had descended into Afghanistan dressed in my finest disruptive-patterned material and desert boots, perhaps not with the same je ne sais quoi as the Assyrian from the fold, but with in touching distance. Nearly.

I thought [with more than a nod to the early reportage of Bill Deedes] I should start the update with a précis of the weather; for the first two days it was dank and overcast, with temperatures much lower than the seasonal average, there was even the odd droplet of rain. On the whole the climate was more a wet Wednesday afternoon in Solihull than searing heat and dust. But the sun, like a good man (and a teenage boy’s reproductive wand), can’t be kept down, and by Friday we were back into the high forties and business as usual. I would love to be able to say things have changed and that there has been improvement in Kandahar City over the last couple of weeks, and I can. During my first trip back into the city there was a noticeable increase in the footprint of all manner of Afghan security forces and civic officials. These include, the security ring, which surrounds all the routes of ingress to the city and consist of armed traffic and vehicle control stations, which search and stop suspicious activity and vehicles. There is traffic police who control the flow around town, which may seem mundane but affords a greater ease of movement for the locals going about their daily grind.

The police are in far greater numbers on every street, and by the evidence of the state of some of the uniform, the demand to join the service and act in order to ensure safety and freedom may be currently outstripping the logistic capability. This is a positive step. I would suggest that a police force (more of a paramilitary than our own peelers) that is witnessing a boom in recruitment, that is civilian-driven, is a healthy indicator of the desire of the population to put an end to the oppression and violence that has blighted their existence for so many years to such a horrifying extent.

Of course, all of this comes with a quid pro quo, and sadly that has manifested itself as an increase in attacks on those members of the Afghan National Security Forces and members of their families. One hopes, albeit naively, that this will soon pass, as these people are surely long overdue some stability, peace and the opportunity to economically develop without hindrance and unfettered bloodshed.

On Thursday evening we had an armoured-vehicle breakdown in the middle of the city. This is the busiest time of the week, and with little or no street lighting and an increasingly agitated and swelling populous, is a situation I would wish not to repeat in a hurry.

What do you think? Leave your comments below.