I feel like a footballer again.

After a year at Reading, I got out of the routine of things ? spending Saturdays and Friday nights with my family rather than playing and not even knowing who we were playing ? and I was left feeling more like a part-time fan than a player.

I lost touch with the routine of being a professional footballer because I was never in the side properly.

But I have got that feeling back again now with Southend. I am playing every week, I am looking ahead to games, thinking about who we are playing and what the system is.

I have got the routine back ? and it is great to be scoring goals again.

Things are going as well as I could have hoped for with my new club, apart from missing the opening games through injury.

I didn't want to call it quits after my time at Reading because I felt I still had something left to give and I wanted to go out with fond memories of my last year in the game.

And that seems to have been the right decision because it is going great here. I'm scoring goals again and I'm getting that relationship back with the fans.

The Southend crowds are really getting into the whole 'Feed the Goat' thing, which is great because it shows I am doing well.

They sing it before the game and because I scored two on Monday, they were singing it most of the way through the game.

It was a great result for us against Colchester in a match that meant a lot to the fans.

I didn't realise it was a derby game until a couple of players let me know a few days before but then I found out what it really meant.

There's a guy who works at the hotel where they put me up for home games and he is a real Southend fanatic.

He was telling me all about the rivalry and what it means to the real fans. He gave me a bit of the history and told me some stories ? the players told me a little bit but when you speak to the fans you get a really good idea of what it means.

That's why it was a bit special to score a couple of goals. It might not be the Manchester derby ? which was probably the last time I scored two goals in a local game ? but that's not how the fans see it.

You can't tell people from Southend that their game against Colchester isn't as big as another derby. It means everything for fans to get a win over their local rivals and that win would have meant everything to the 7,500 who were there on Monday. Whether there are 40,000 or 5,000 there, a derby win is a derby win.

The first goal was a pretty decent one.

Luke Guttridge had the ball at the halfway by the touchline and I made a move towards him and then spun my defender and went after the long ball over the top.

It was a perfect diagonal ball, I brought it down with my head and then smashed it home with my left foot. The defender caught me on the calf of my trailing leg but I didn't feel it until a few minutes later.

I was pleased with that one, it was clever how I spun the defender and it is always a great feeling to smash the ball home.

And then in the second half, we were 2-1 up and I got the second in an almost identical way.

I pulled my man in and then spun him again, collected the long ball and this time half-volleyed over the goalkeeper's head ? the crowd went wild.

I was really happy with my performance and it is always good to score a couple of goals. That hasn't happened to me for a while.