Apathy is its own reward at New Year

It is so easy to stray from the straight and narrow and so difficult to drag yourself away from the temptations littering the primrose path of dalliance.

How easy it is to fall off the treadmill, and how hard to drag yourself back on again. When it comes to willpower, if I give my body or mind an inch of relaxation, it takes a mile of apathy, and the last four weeks have provided a flurry of examples.

Work, for one thing. I took a week off at the beginning of December, rushed around a freezing Britain fitting in as many people and occasions as possible, and then returned to the UAE with a hacking cough and a sleeping-in habit.

Back to work? Well, sort of. I was late almost every morning for a week. I spent large amounts of time "ploughing through my email backlog" (translation: staring vacantly at the screen wondering why women of my mother's generation fought so hard for their daughters to be shackled to a computer station instead of being chained to the kitchen sink).

I toyed with doing my expenses but got distracted by a press release about the online sale at Net-a-Porter.com.

Then there's exercise. I've been playing tennis every week, come shine or shine, for the past year. I quailed at the prospect of playing at the height of August, but still I refused to be daunted.

Yet, since returning from Britain, not one tennis lesson have I had. Not once have I called my coach. And in no way are my flu symptoms sufficiently severe to justify this.

There is only one explanation: sloth. Specifically the pygmy three-toed sloth I was cooing over on Animal Planet at the very moment that I should have been hailing a taxi to the Abu Dhabi Country Club.

Similarly, while I'm no fan of the gym (one of the most tedious ways to spend 45 minutes ever devised by an ancient Greek) I had nevertheless, until four weeks ago, been forcing myself to plug in my most energetic music on the iPod and trudge away on the cross-trainer at least a couple of times a week. The gym is, after all, just one floor up from my flat and it's free. There's really no excuse for my current lethargy. Well, no excuse other than, um, a really interesting documentary on the History Channel. Or a Masterchef omnibus. Or maybe a new episode of Bones.

So I blame my British cough, and I blame my tiring holiday. It's all the fault of that depressing grey sky in Blighty and the slightly chilly breeze in Abu Dhabi.

The temptations of Christmas pudding and Lebanese Mill roast chicken didn't help, and who would voluntarily visit a supermarket during the festive season? Plus, I've just discovered the Discovery Channel, so I'm improving my mind, and I've got a pile of new novels to get through.

At least it all renders more achievable my New Year's resolution: get off the couch and do something; anything. How's it going, you ask? Meh. Sofa so good.