My life is being controlled by a watch.

One of the great things about being retired is not having to watch the clock. Not having to work out when you need to start getting ready for work or worrying about how much time you have left sitting in the recliner before you have to get out of it.

Having spent over 35 years as a policeman, I learned early on, how to live my life by a watch. One of the first things I was taught in the Garda Training Centre in Templemore was that every entry in the official notebook begins with four headings; Day, Date, Time and Place.

So, for every incident I went to, the first words written in my note book were, what day it was, the date and what time it was when I arrived at my location. These are important details that can easily be forgotten over time and especially when you could be dealing with many incidents during an eight-hour shift.

So, right from the start, a watch became a critical piece of equipment for me and making those entries became as automatic as breathing. We all did it without thinking.

When I retired, I was surprised at how quickly time became irrelevant to me and it wasn’t long before I began to lose track of it altogether. It doesn’t matter to me what day of the week I have because unless I have something specific to do, it is all the same to me.

To a retired person, every weekend is a Bank Holiday weekend and every day is free to be enjoyed however we chose to do it. I adapted to this lifestyle with little difficulty and quickly grew fond of it. There are some who have commented that I was born for retirement and that’s fair enough I suppose.

I liked this new-found lifestyle, not having to look at my watch every few minutes, and I was blissfully happy. And that’s a dangerous mindset to be in because it seems to me, that any time I reached a state of contentment, something always happened to turn it around and introduce me to some misery and hardship.

I put it down to the Gods, the Greek ones in particular. You have probably heard about some of them over the years like Aphrodite, the goddess of love. Athena was the goddess of reason and wisdom, Artemis was responsible for hunting, while Ares looked after bloodlust and wasn’t liked by the others but apparently, he wasn’t bothered.

Zeus is probably one of the better-known Greek gods and he was the top man. The go to guy. Apart from his many other duties, he also controlled the weather but unfortunately, he was unable to control himself and spent a lot of his time chasing after other women.

Hera was the queen goddess and she was a bit complicated. She was married to Zeus but was also his sister and old Zeus liked to have his few flings and Hera got her kicks out of tormenting these other women. Then there was Hades who ruled the world of the dead and Apollo, who was like a fixer and carried out the instructions of the others.

So, there were lots of these characters around, creating mayhem and carnage, and while many of you will dismiss all this as bunkum and a load of nonsense, I believe there is something to it. Not only that, but I think there was another God that was not as well-known as the others.

I don’t know what his name was, but he was the one responsible for misery and hardship. He’s the guy who watched over everyone to make sure they were unhappy. When anyone showed the slightest sign of having a good time, he struck to make sure that misery was visited upon them and knocked all sense of fun out of them. And I’ll tell you something else, he hasn’t gone away.

That’s not all. This guy knows me personally and I have no idea what I ever did to him, but he has had it in for me for a long time. He will not leave me be and he struck again at Christmas. He could see I was comfortable at home and he observed my relaxed lifestyle. It displeased him and not content with minding his own business and leaving me in peace, he preferred instead to have some fun.

So, he infiltrated the minds of my children and persuaded them to buy me a watch. Not an ordinary watch either but a Garmin Vivomove. When I opened the box and saw it, I immediately thought it was an attractive piece of kit and I took a shine to it. But the instruction manual sent a shiver up my spine and I knew straight away that the god of misery had a hand in it.

You see, for those of you who have never seen one of these watches, telling the time is only one of its many functions. It also records your heart rate and estimates your level of stress. It records the number of steps you take, the number of stairs you climb, how many calories you consume and how many you lose.

It sets targets to get you exercising, times your movements and tells you how many miles you have travelled in your day. But by far, the most alarming aspect of this gadget, is that if I sit for too long in the one spot it will vibrate on my wrist and the screen will light up with a message telling me to ‘Move’.

For a short while, it felt good not having to worry about time anymore, but now a watch has taken control of my life again. Thanks to the god of misery.