G-EMMA, thank you for that post! There you go, blundering through the blue, making cock-up after cock-up, thinking you're the only guy in this Mile High Duffers Club you've created for yourself; when someone chimes in and says, Hey, I did that, too! And over the same bits of countryside!
Anyway, congrats on your nav skills test.
It says a lot for you that your nerve held together after all that.
My problem is that I seem to fly so much better on my own. The minute my instructor jumps in with me I go to pieces.
Hope your back sorts itself soon. As a fellow sufferer I sympathise.