I can now sleep for England thanks to my new fitness watch

​This new fitness watch of mine is, as expected, overseeing my steady decline in meticulous detail.

Early doors, the watch was encouraging me to increase my steps, go to the gym, drink plenty of fluids and get that heart rate up.

Like the obedient watch slave that I am, I did just that, with runs, sports, Olympic-level water gargling and adrenaline-pumping activities. The last one involves a little stretching of the imagination. I play village cricket. Adrenaline levels and heart rates rise only when confronted with a particularly poor tea. ‘What, no sausage rolls?’ he fumed.

The result of this burst of activity was, naturally, a bursting of a body part.

My calf snapped. Well, ‘snapped’ is putting it dramatically. It probably just warped. Or over-stretched. Twanged even. Whatever the correct word, it bleedin’ hurt.

Thus, yours truly was laid up with what in sports physio parlance is known as an ice pack strapped to his leg, but what you and I call a half-used bag of frozen sweetcorn.

I held it in place on my throbbing calf with the knee support I’d bought to ease my equally throbbing knee from all the extra running.

On the night I bust my calf, I did have a calf compression sock in my bag. A cricket buddy asked why I hadn’t used it. ‘I’m not convinced they make a difference,’ I told him.

‘Well, especially not if you leave them in your bag,’ he quipped. I limped away in disgust. So much for the watch boosting my health, I thought. Maybe Samsung has shares in athletic supports or frozen sweetcorn. I checked through my watch metrics. Forget steps, I thought, does this machine do limps? If not, I’m chucking it out. It was then that I discovered the watch measures sleep patterns. What am I then? A strangled cat or a walloped wombat? Turns out I’m top of the food chain. I’m an Unconcerned Lion because I sleep so well.

Guess I’ll keep that watch after all. Could sleeping be an Olympic sport soon? I’ll happily put in the extra training…