Am I happiest on the farm or out in the middle? I am a cricketer, but the farm is a very special place and I absolutely love being in the countryside and getting away from the bubble. I like to think I'm a farmer, but there's so much experience that goes into that.
It's surreal to think that no one has played as many Test matches for England. I suppose it's a credit to my longevity.
The delight you feel in that split second you score your first hundred is so intense it can't be repeated.
Nobody walks over me, ever, and no-one will walk over me, ever.
Even when every Tom, Dick and Harry was calling for my head, I still felt I could get better at being captain.
The atmosphere and the first days of Test matches against Australia are incredible.
The family farm plays such a big part in my life and I genuinely love going back there. In some ways I'd like to spend every day there, but there would be a big hole in my life if I didn't stay involved in cricket.
I don't think you have to be this macho man all the time, just because you play sport.
I think it's very hard to shake what people first think of you straightaway.
Throughout my career I have done it my way and used my stubborn streak. I thought the best way to captain was to shut out all the noise - I did it with my batting and thought 'that has served me well, so why change it?'
I suppose you could say I was always having to defend my style of captaincy. I did get a lot of criticism - some of it justified, other times as part of a tactic.
In one sense, what happens for me outside of cricket gives me that break - the farming means I have a really different life outside of cricket; it's not just cricket, cricket, cricket for 12 months of the year.
As cricketers we fail all the time. You score a hundred every now and again but you get out between nought and 20 far more often. If you get 50, you feel bad because you should have got a hundred. Even if you get a hundred, you feel you should have got 150. So you're always failing.
When I watch Twenty20 cricket, there's a different satisfaction. That hundred you get in six hours is a very satisfying feeling. A real triumph of skill. I don't quite see that in the 20-over game - or the 100-ball game.
I am hugely honoured and proud to be receiving a knighthood.
The India series wasn't the only reason I retired. It was the culmination of 18 months where things had probably changed in my life.
Alex Hales has tightened up his game from South Africa and learned about Test cricket. It's great when you see someone who doesn't quite nail it, but goes away and works away at it, come back a person who understands more about Test cricket.
It's very hard to reflect properly when you're still playing but the hundreds one - when I got my 23rd in Kolkata - felt the most special because it broke a benchmark that had stood for a very long time. It felt good to do something no Englishman has done before.
If someone taps me on the shoulder and tells me they don't want me to open the batting for England, it's going to hurt.
When you're playing, every ball seems like the biggest event. When you're sitting back, you can see the overall picture better.
