Why I'm going to do more of what makes me happy in 2024

I know my mammy friends have the best of intentions, but it is all feeling a bit much too soon when it comes to the health kicks

As parents, we have a duty to mind ourselves because our children need us for as long as they need us

Though we are now knee-deep into January and the season of good intentions, I can’t help but yearn for a simpler time, a time when it was completely socially acceptable to eat chocolate for breakfast and calling unannounced to anyone’s house was basically illegal. Of course, I am talking about Christmas. I am still grieving the absence of obnoxious fairy lights and hit-and-miss handpainted Santies - playschool artwork, which we are under a moral obligation to praise for fear of the ramifications with our adult children down the line.

What with its absence of fairy lights and plum pudding, January is tough going, especially given the number of friends who have already texted asking me to join a boot camp, a spin class, or, even more pedestrian still, to go for a walk (this is what we call a top-shelf pun). It appears the continuation of our friendly chats has become contingent on one or other of us huffing and puffing our way to a cardiac arrest while analysing the latest episode of Real Housewives. I know my mammy friends have the best of intentions — even the ones with Groupon vouchers — but it is all feeling a bit much too soon, and I am much more inclined to proceed towards a New Year, New Me with caution.