“This morning when I woke up I felt really lazy, but then I remembered that my mum had bought a new packet of cornflakes, so I jumped right off the bed and nearly knocked down my brother, who must have thought I was a flying saucer.”

These are the words of my young self, aged perhaps seven or eight, as dutifully recorded in my personal school 'news' book. My love of breakfast cereals links back to some of my earliest memories. Every evening, my mum would give my brother and I a little egg-cup full of cereal to eat in front of the television. When the cereal was gone, it was time for bed. Obviously, we wanted to prolong the experience, so it was always a balancing act – consuming the tasty treat versus the deliciously mysterious feeling of staying up past curfew.

I realised I had passed my obsession down to my own son when he was five. Looking out through the window one morning, we saw that it was cold, wet, windy and grey outside. “What would you like to do today?” I asked. My son thought for a moment before resolutely replying “stay home and eat cereal.”

Luckily, my wife is very understanding of my addiction. On our honeymoon, to her native city of New York, I lasted a total of seven days cereal-free. We would instead have breakfast at various eateries around the city. On that seventh day, I cracked. “I need cereal,” I told her. We picked up a full packet. “We're leaving tomorrow,” she reminded me, “you'll never eat all that in one day and one morning.”

It is one of the few times that she has been wrong.