I hated these harsh days of January. Everyone’s on the dry, the pubs are empty, there isn’t a sticky bun to be got and you’re at nothing if you don’t have a long face and a tale of woe to tell.

As you know, I was volunteered to take part in a local version of Operation Transformation. Against my better instincts I had to sign on for it. The weigh-in took place at the hall on 7 January and the news wasn’t too good. I hit the scales at 247lbs, that’s 17stone, 9lbs and 10 ounces for those born before the Apollo moon landing, and 112kg for those of you more familiar with the weight of bullocks.

Using the convoluted body mass index (BMI) calculation, I’m in serious bother. A score of between 18 and 25 means you’re at normal weight, overweight is 25-29 and anything over 30 is obese. I was close to 40 when my calculations were done.

I’m not the only one. There are four other designated ‘leaders’ in this Operation Transformation lark. There’s Moll Gleeson, who is as auld as I am and is certainly carrying more than a bit of condition. She did her weigh-in in the privacy of the ladies loo and came out like a divil. She attacked nurse Tracey Moloney saying the weighing scales must have been made in North Korea.

Then there’s Ed, a son of Pa Cantillon. A lovely young lad of about 32, he’s inclined to spend too much time at the table and, to make matters worse, is fond of the fizzy drinks. Like myself, he has a road to travel.

Mag Hartigan from Shronefodda is a young mother of five children and, as she says herself, whatever the children don’t eat, she finishes it. After 10 years of hoovering up the children’s leftovers, she is shopping in the XL end of the shelf. With five kids under 12, I don’t know where she’ll get the time for the leaping and hopping they expect us to do.

The last man is Father Barney Roche, our PP. He used to cycle everywhere, but the parish is so big he bought himself a Honda 50 and the pounds have piled on.

“I’m not as nifty since I got the 50,” he says.

At the weigh-in our new GP Martina, Doc Doherty’s daughter, gave each of us a quick diagnosis and prognosis. Mine was kinda frightening, I nearly lost a stone weight before she finished delivering her verdict. She told me I’m in danger of getting everything from diabetes to diarrhoea, from blood pressure to flat feet and thrombosis. ’Twas so bad I felt I shouldn’t bother going home, but should go straight to Tinky Ryan’s and stretch myself out in a box.

In front of the whole village and half the parish, I had to listen to my ailments and potential ailments being read out. Then it was the turn of nurse Moloney to give me my diet sheet for the week – good heavens, a snipe would get more to eat in a day than she was prescribing for me for a week. Suffice to say I’ll be spending more money at the green grocer’s than at the butcher’s.

Our final appointment was with the drill sergeant, our own Sergeant McKready. He took us out to the tennis court to measure our fitness and put us through a series of tests that were surely invented by Stalin’s secret police. We had to touch the back of our left heel with our right hand – I got as far as the left cheek of my arse. Then we had to pull our heel into the small of our back by grabbing our instep – after about 10 attempts I managed to grab the instep but lost my balance and fell over on top of Mag Hartigan, the mother of five, nearly smothering her.

We had to jog around the yard ’till we got breathless – I did half a round before I had to lean against the wall. Finally we had to bend over and touch our right big toe with our left hand – I haven’t seen my toes in years. As I left, McKready gave me an exercise regime for the week that would cause Conor McGregor to go pale.

When I got home and showed the Mother the diet of lettuces, carrots, lentils, asparagus and the like, she could only shake her head: “Do they want to turn you into a billygoat?” says she. “You’ll die of the hunger on this stuff.”

“We’ll sneak in the odd fry and the odd steak,” says I.

“We?” says she. “We? You got yourself into this mess and you can eat or starve your way out of it.”

I hate this time of year. CL