“I just generally feel constantly terrible,” I complain to Short Tony, as he cooks dinner for his dogg. “I’ve got fat, I’m out of breath all the time, I’ve got no… get-up-and-go.”

He gives the wok a stir. My suggestion that we start playing tennis again is accepted as something that we might do some time in the future at some point sometime.

I am very down. It is not the Toddler’s fault, but since she has been around with her subversive and sabotaging influence, my own quality of self-care has been put to one side. I have stopped cooking nice healthy meals and am grabbing whatever is to hand, and I am drinking too much (although this is genetics as our genes have yet to catch up with the fact that there are pubs now). On the sporting front I only really play bowls and snooker these days, and you cannot really count snooker as exercise.

The LTLP has taken her fleas to Los Angeles for a bit, and I feel that now is the time.

“I’m going to start running again,” I announce.

Short Tony turns the heat down to a simmer, to reduce the sauce.

“Is that wise?” he asks.