’Tis the season to entertain ourselves with humble alternate realities where we own exercise equipment instead of bonus clotheshorses, or, for the bookishly inclined, we use up those empty gifted notebooks instead of letting the collection grow so full it functions more as structural support for some beleaguered bottom corner of the bookcase. A little damp and then you’d have the beginnings of a paper maché column, which you might then shape to your fancy (Doric? Corinthian?) and who is to say that wouldn’t be more useful than the first draft of a novel? As my overloaded shelves creak and I wonder how much more the bolts bravely affixing this deathtrap to the wall can take, not I.

The vague intentions, most of which gesture towards health, include undoing the ways of working from home as a freelancer for the past three years - and the lifelong inclinations forged in mid 1980s central Scottish childhood. Now in my mid thirties, my body changing and making its complaints known in new ways, I know I can no longer shun exercise. It has to become part of my life, part of a routine. And if I don’t do it now, when might I do it - never? It won’t be any easier as I age. So I’d better get on with it.

It sounds like a lot of work; in my mind’s eye, I have an endless road to run. But my goal for last year was to stop being faddish about exercise. Instead of getting really into using my exercise bike for two weeks then ignoring it for four months, I’d try to go steady. Routine, thought of as reducing the gaps between events, is not such an intimidating approach. All I need to do is reduce the gaps.I go for a brisk and chilly walk in the park, the crushed velvet of black ice underfoot keeping my aims modest,but I’m outside getting some fresh air - tick - and some moderate exercise - tick. My heart lifts at blue skies, dogs in jumpers, and one majestic wood pigeon basking on the tallest branch of a tree, chest out in golden afternoon light, as though an eagle mindset were his own resolution for the new year. I use the excuse of Scottish bank holiday, the glittering wee gem that is the second of January, to soft launch this exhausting business of daily activity. That’ll do.

At home again, deadline looming, I have a sudden compulsion to clean the windows, to let in as much light in as possible. It’s amazing how much can be achieved in avoiding something else. It’s when I’m most productive.

Pottering about completed, I cannot avoid opening my laptop. That’s another thing, I’d better start saving documents in an orderly fashion, instead of scattering them across the desktop to pick up later. Immediately sucked down an internet wormhole, I WhatsApp my friend Amanda an LED lamp moulded like broccoli lying hopelessly on its side and type ‘relatable’. But it reminds me of broccoli in my fridge. My mouth waters for dressing it in soy sauce and lemon zest. Eating a vegetable - tick. Saving finished column in 2023 folder - tick. Often the hardest thing is just getting started.

I have an endless road to run but doing just a little at a time will get me there - Laura Waddell