Parents who’ve forgotten how exhausting young children are occasionally stop you and say: “The days are long, but the years are short.” Some reel – which is where I get all of my information these days – altered it slightly to say: “The days are long, but the weeks are also long,” which feels more accurate when you’re on your hands and knees on the kitchen floor picking up sticky rice with a wet wipe.

There are fewer saccharine Insta posts about football seasons feeling so arduously long and yet suddenly over at the same time. “Ah don’t you remember when it was the Carabao Cup first round – so cute.” This catches me out every year. Perhaps no one else is blindsided by football season by stealth, but here we are again: just a handful of games remaining to decide everything – and I’m not entirely sure how we’re at this stage.

It feels like both yesterday and a lifetime ago that I was sitting in a sports bar in Old Street feeling enthused about Spurs (my big team who win things). They may have lost that Super Cup to Paris Saint-Germain in a Spursy manner –...