like you touched the girl's thigh without being invited to.
Love the analogy.
You want to break your habit and use the whole box without any short cuts.
I was taught to block change when I had my driving lessons. The important thing is matching speed, not just road speed but also engine speed. When I block change down like that, it's usually because I'm coming up to a junction and want to be able to stop or go without hesitation. The only difference in this instance is that I was still travelling at speed (60mph at 3-4k rpm rather than <20mph at under 2k rpm).
Sounds like you may of just burnt the clutch a little. Which will of no doubt occured when you disengaged from 2nd and subsequently transferred all the load onto the clutch causing a soft pedal for a while.
Nothing to worry about.
Ah thanks. As said previously, I've never downchanged into an inappropriate gear before.
Anyways, took the car out on another trip today and had no issues whatsoever. Apart from a muppet in the outside lane of a dual carriageway who neither overtook the vehicle on the inside lane nor moved back into the lefthand lane. Really winds me up because he was basically blocking the dual carriageway.