One thing that’s become clear over the past year or so of chaos is that it’s helpful to focus on the things that you can control. With that in mind, I focused in on achieving my Apple activity badges each month - the personalised ones, not the all-three-rings-every-single-day one. At first it was just a bit of fun, and then, despite my best intentions, it became a complete the full year of badges project.

It feels like Apple Fitness+ was announced so long ago - time moves slowly these days, right? But finally, mid-December, the new service launched and I was very keen to try it out. It’s a subscription service that you can either purchase separately or as part of a bundle of Apple services (my option), but it’s squarely aimed at people who have an Apple Watch as well. Once you’re on board, the integration with the watch is incredible and makes it all worthwhile - without a Watch, I’m not 100% sure it stacks up against the vast array of fitness alternatives.

I suspect I have talked before at length about how fun I find the Apple Watch activity badges, and how they encourage me to keep moving. Recently I’ve been less obsessed with them, getting on with my own plans and seeing what badges fall my way without forcing it. However, this month, something weird happened and I wanted to get the monthly badge so desperately despite the odds being significantly against me.

Today I managed to earn this award on my Apple Watch - 1,000 move goals. I don’t quite know how that’s possible, especially since a burst of energy a month or two ago sent my move goal sky high. But I’ve got a good relationship with the goals on my watch now - not over-taxing myself to try and reach them and then burning out, but using them as motivation to keep going when you just need that little extra push to get an award.

When it comes to getting up and about and trying to exercise, I tend to flit from one thing to another. Nothing really captures my attention, except swimming. I do not like to go to the local swimming pool because (and this is probably another of my weird traits) there is no way of seeing how busy it is before you go in, and yet I don’t want there to be any kind of window with outsiders peering in once you get in the water.

It’s hula-hooping, right? Who knew that hula-hooping was actually hard work? Okay, so you’ve probably guessed it: I am now the proud owner of a Wii Fit. And it’s brilliant. At the moment, I’m still suffering the effects of a cold and wintry three-day stay in a tent, and can’t put the maximum effort into a routine. However, from what I know already, it’s brilliant. I’m not entirely sure how it does it, but the Wii Board knows everything about me!

I got home last night and an enormous silver ball came flying out of the main room into the hallway. Thankfully, I had moved out of the way from my usual “removing shoes” position, and the ball missed me. For a second, I thought I was unknowingly in a remake of The Prisoner. Turns out it was just a gym ball. Has anyone tried to use one of these? I never realised how bad my balance actually is.

When I was in my teenage years, I pretty much lived in my bedroom. I had everything I needed in there, books, music, television, computers. To get out of the house and to get some well-needed exercise, my mother started dragging me along to her keep-fit classes. I wasn’t so sure at first, what with being a body-conscious teenager and all. Actually, they turned out to be quite fun. The emphasis was on the dance rather than the exercise, and I found that I quite enjoyed myself.

Not content with getting through an entire day at work on Monday, I also decided that was the day to go back to the gym. I was really surprised at how happy I was when I got there. Don’t tell anyone I said so, but I actually missed going to the gym. While I was puffing away on the cross-trainer, I plugged my iPod in and played a random playlist. There was some quite uninspirational music.

Today, there was a man in a blue t-shirt and he was floating around the weights section. Every now and then he would lift a really heavy weight a few times, make a lot of grunting noises and let us all know that he was very strong. Then he would put the weight down, and wander round for a bit. He would stalk around the weights in a predatory way, as though he and he alone was man enough to lift those weights.