I came late to a fitness watch. But at some point in the last two years- long, long after everyone else had adopted them, I requested one for a birthday or a Christmas gift and Husband duly obliged.

Up until then, the very idea of a little bracelet attached to my wrist that assumed superiority and authority over my every movement brought about a bristling denial. I didn’t want to be monitored for each step I took, each staircase I ascended. I didn’t need to be informed of ‘how I had slept’. I knew this already. Having ‘slept for England’ as a younger woman [to use Husband’s phrase] I’ve become, in my later years, a poor sleeper. I’ll fall asleep with ease during TV programmes in the late evening, stagger off to clean my teeth and be wide awake for the next two or three hours. I’ll read, listen to podcasts, compose stories in my head [and forget them by morning] then eventually drift off in the small hours. Still, I thought I’d give it a chance to chart my sleep journey…that is until its unaccustomed presence on my wrist became yet another impediment to slumber.

So no, a fitness watch would be neither necessary nor desirable, I felt. But what made me begin to change my mind was being able to tell the time. A fitness watch has a clear, readable screen with a digital display. As with all the other bits of me, the eyes are wearing out, making reading my extremely pretty, conventional watch altogether pointless. I was tired of rooting around for my phone every time I needed to know what time it was.

I could probably have solved the problem by getting a cheap, digital watch, except that I had a yen to be brought up to date with a little technology. I’d mellowed a bit in my attitude to fitness watches. What harm could it do? I was a regular exerciser. I walked, cycled, did Pilates and dance exercise classes. I got the watch and caught up with contemporary technology circles.

Soon after this, mishap struck in the form of more body decadence. Something began to hurt. Dance exercise had to cease [a source of great frustration and grief]. I got x-rayed by the NHS to no avail. No- there was nothing wrong. A gushing radiologist informed me, grinning triumphantly, that I had not fractured my hip- er…not something I was expecting to have happened, actually…

Meanwhile, activity came to a standstill. I lolled about. Sometimes I limped about, distance I could travel on foot having shrunk to house and garden confines.

Stuck, we turned to private medicine, discovering that my arthritic hip joint did not show on any x-ray or scan but was afflicted. I could still cycle on a static bike and now, since I couldn’t walk to the gym, got one for home. After months of indolence I needed to get fitter and sleeker for major surgery.

Once I’d been furnished with a new, stainless steel and titanium hip joint, I began on the road to recovery, tough at first then easier as the days passed.

Now the little fitness watch came into its own! It tracked my walks- room sized to begin with then round the block on 2 crutches, extending on. It is, I feel, a tyrant, reminding me to move after I’ve sunk gratefully into a chair following a four mile walk. It comes late to the party, buzzing to tell me ‘Walk detected!’ after half a mile. It says I’ve still got several thousand steps to do today [10,000 steps is still quite a tall order at only 6 weeks post op].

The consultant has signed me off and we’ll be setting off in the van quite soon now. Husband will be taking his new bike but at the moment I’m still only allowed to walk, which is sad but SO much better than not moving at all. So maybe the little watch is my friend after all…

Novels by Jane Deans [Grace]: The Year of Familiar Strangers and The Conways at Earthsend. Visit my website: janedeans.com