Richard Douglas

In January 2020 I decided I wanted to lose some weight so I fired up an app on my phone, began religiously recording every calorie I consumed and made an effort to have a deficit of about 500 calories a day from the 2,500 recommended limit. It was miserable.

"Okay honey, so, when you hear your name, walk across the stage, the hostess will talk to you, then get into the shower, pull the handle up and the water will come on," he explained. "Make sure you're good and wet all over then get out of the shower, walk to the middle of the stage and dance your ass off!"

I've started avoiding the news. The hysteria this week over a certain government adviser has reached such a frenzy that I can't bear it any longer. Thankfully I'd booked the week off work and as the weather has been glorious I've been able to spend a lot of time outside in the garden.

I wish I'd have been one of those children that excelled at school, or even enjoyed it. As it turned out I was destined to mediocrity.

My childhood was one long string of parties. Trouble is they were my mother's parties and as she was a 1980s housewife living in suburban Oldham they weren't the kind of social events you or I would think of now.

Chris and I spent Saturday afternoon painting the walls at the back of our house. The old red brick now brightened up with the Alpine Blue masonry paint which took five weeks to travel from Darwen to Altrincham and finally to us. We're getting lots of jobs done during the lockdown, jobs which might have still been ideas if we weren't restricted to internet shopping and staying at home. I've never seen the cutlery drawers so neat before.