‘I’ve got The Fear,’ said the message. It was 9pm on Sunday, the last day of the Christmas break and hearing from a former colleague focused my mind on the vague uneasiness that had been building throughout the day that I’d been ignoring.

I shared the fear of returning to work. It’s not that I mind the particular job I’m doing, or the people I do it with. It’s not even that I mind being an accountant, no one forced me into it after all and I made my peace with that decision shortly before the arrival of my first child.

The thing is, that after having Christmas off, every year I start to think, this whole work thing is just a bit rubbish really.