I have a step counter on my watch and am obsessed with how many steps I do each day.

I look back to when I was a kid, a time when the word “school run” was something you’d do if you bunked off, I walked everywhere (when I wasn’t running).

They suggest, like eating five pieces of fruit (pineapple chunks and Jaffa Cakes don’t count), that you attempt to walk 10,000-steps a day.

I think I’d have achieved this walking to and from my Tooting school from my Balham flat.

Sometimes I’d skip; sometimes I practiced my bowling action while humming the main theme to Patton: Lust for glory.  I was a mixture of George C Scott and Richie Benaud. 

Couple this walk with running around like a maniac during playtime, the 10,000-steps were invariably achieved before Double Chemistry.  Road Runner meets Pipette Man.

However, all that walking and playing football in the playground during playtime, with school shoes on, gave you an appreciation of how Margot Fonteyn must have felt.  At least I never had to wear a tutu. 

My fitbit also monitors my sleep; what it doesn’t tell me is why I no longer dream about Claudia Cardinale every night.  So, modern technology, not all it’s cracked up to be.

It’s Sunday morning, only another 9,995-steps to go.