I KNOW I say this every year, but 2007 is going to be different.
For a start, this is going to be Chinese Year of the Pig, and I was born in the year of the pig, so 2007 has got my name on it.
People born in pig years are, apparently, loyal, strong, fond of life’s luxuries, good friends and, this is the down-side, prone to over-indulge in food and drink.

As I write this, very late on New Year’s Day, I am sitting in the kitchen surrounded by lovely leftovers from the night before.
There’s a hardly-touched chocolate fondue, half a raspberry pavlova, most of a lemon tart and just the lickings of a crème brulee.
(Or that, at least, was how they were when I first started my column. Having a read-through now, everything except the rock-solid chocolate fondue is mysteriously almost gone. Oink, oink!)
As babysitters on New Year’s Eve are impossible to find, I invited all my similarly single female friends and my daughters’ teenage girly friends (and my middle daughter’s lovely16-year-old boyfriend, who didn’t seem to mind being surrounded by women).
One of the advantages of being single is that my similarly-single, female friends are all very good cooks who always turn up for any event ready for the feeding of the five thousand.

We had a scrummy last supper of 2006, but none of us had room for more than a token bit of pud (the crème brulee was the definite winner). We didn’t even get started on the cheese board.
Plus we all had to leave room for copious amounts of fizzy pop in order to see in the New Year in style.
As I live on the hill above Torquay harbour, my house is a great place for Hogmanay. The hills around the Clock Tower create a natural amphitheatre effect and the eruption of cheers at midnight is fantastic. It sounds like Man Utd have just scored, except that the solid roar of sound goes on, unabated for a full 20 to 30 minutes. Add to that the private fireworks being let-off from all of Torquay’s seven hills, and it’s a great show.
Plus any older children can wander in and out of the pubs and clubs and get back home without a taxi.
But the downside is that I had to get up and go to work today after very little sleep, with a bit of a hangover
And after work I had to spend the rest of the day making the biggest Lego knight’s castle in the world, which would have been more fun if my five-year-old hadn’t decided to open all the nicely divided little bags and mix them into one giant 8,788 piece mess.
I cried when I saw what he’d done. First I shouted, but then I cried out of guilt for shouting at him. Because I told him off and said Santa shouldn’t have brought him a Lego set meant for an over-eight year old. What’s wrong with Santa? Is he a complete and total eejit?
So then my poor little boy was so upset at messing up that he started crying and packing it away, telling me to put it in the attic until he is eight. And that was it. He was crying, I was crying. I begged his forgiveness and have since happily put everything else on hold apart from castle assembly and New Year’s partying.
Which is why I find myself writing this right on deadline, sitting at the kitchen table to the tune of the third load of dishwashing so far today. And finding the only cure for writer’s block is eating my way through the contents of the fridge, larder and kitchen cupboards.

So how exactly is 2007 going to be different? I am not about to make any lame dieting resolutions, even though I have just witnessed the total transformation of my sister-in-law who came for a Christmas visit having lost an incredible five stone in the last seven months.
What’s the point in making resolutions when I now realise I can’t help being a pig by nature? Instead I am going to get fitter.
After hearing that we in Torbay come near the bottom of a national league table for not taking enough regular exercise, I am determined to do something about it.
Health officials say the minimum needed to make a difference to health is three vigorous, 30 minute workouts a week.
Luckily a few year’s ago I discovered the perfect sport for me is rowing. Mostly because you get to do it sitting down. Then there’s the total escapism as soon as you leave the beach and turn off your mobile… an hour free from the demands of children, work, life etc.
Plus there’s the social aspect: you get in a boat with four friends and can have a bit of a natter while you warm-up, wind-down and haul the boat up and down the beach.

But most importantly for me, once a training session is booked, there’s no backing out. No excuses. Like most mums, I am not very good at putting myself before the kids, but knowing that the other three rowers (all equally busy working mums) can’t do it without me, I move hell and high water to avoid letting the team down. It’s the only sport since school I’ve managed to stick at religiously.
We had our best racing season yet, finishing a respectable 10th in 2006, but since the end of the summer our cox has been temporarily out of action and we’ve only managed one row. I am missing it like crazy and desperately need to start feeling fit again.
As of today I am back to lunchtime power-walking with the girls in the office; once a week exercise bike classes and winter rowing training. In theory I should be able to squeeze in one gym session a week. But I’ll have to let you know how it goes…

We’ve all got to do our bit if Torbay is going to lose its Couch Potato reputation.
Here’s to a happy and healthy 2007.