Who's The Daddy: Covid cancelled our Christmas and New Year celebrations

We worked out we spent around £1,500 for Christmas and, as we self-isolated, our eerily similar barking coughs rattling the windows from distant parts of the house like some demented mating call, we did nothing and saw nobody. So my question is this, can we please have our money back?

It sounds like a Captain Obvious type of thing to say but Covid is truly horrible. Coughs, snot, sneezes so powerful they could be used to cull cattle, aching limbs, the shivers, night sweats, the energy of a vegan and, as you gradually get better, the crushing boredom.

It turns out there’s a limit to the number of films you can watch in a day (three) and the 1,000-piece jigsaws you can do in a week (two) before your brain turns to custard and starts to seep out of your ears.

But while you’re lounging around convalescing, you start to notice things. Such as the moment Christmas turns into New Year by the adverts on TV, radio and the internet. Chocolates, perfumes and everything nice is replaced by ads for boring healthy stuff and holidays in the sun.

You can set your calendar by it, maybe even your watch. It’s the moment the last shipping date before Christmas passes and as soon as the shops close on Christmas Eve. It’s like the old Modern Toss cartoon, a voice booms from a helicopter hovering over a crowded city centre, “Buy more **** or we’re all ****ed”.

It seemed there was a clear message from online fitness experts and influencers during the festive season, that it’s not the period from Christmas to New Year that ruins your fitness, but the time between New Year and Christmas. Challenge accepted.

It turns out that if you sit around doing nothing all day and eat biscuits, ice cream and chocolate log for a week, you put on weight. Quickly. Two pounds in a week, without even trying very hard. After a year of calorie counting like a supermodel, this felt like a low blow.

Our Covid-free daughters, now in their early 20s, did what people in their early 20s do for New Year, which back in the 90s we used to call “having it large”. One in London, the other in Liverpool. They turned it in on New Year’s Day around the time we got up after eight hours of sleep. In bed for 10pm, flat out by 10.30.

In the same way that the pubs are filled with rank amateurs in the run-up to Christmas, gyms are suddenly packed in January with people who have the misguided belief that they can run off their festive splurge. From experience, this usually lasts for three weeks.

If you suddenly have the physique of a world-class darts player and aren’t very happy about it, here’s what to do. I lost two-and-a-half stone in six months last year through diet (lots of protein, fibre, fewer carbs and no sugar) and by walking as far as I could every day. 10,000 steps is ideal, but just do as many as you can. There’s no magic pill, it’s not very sexy, but it works.

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