Our kids have recently discovered Strictly Come Dancing but Kara has been the most captivated of all.

Toby exhibits only a passing interest and occasionally grumbles that he’d rather be watching Top Gear. Isaac is obsessed with predicting what the judges’ scores will be. But Kara laps it all up: the costumes, the music and the dances themselves.

Her routine is to get all dressed up and scrutinise the first half-minute of each performance, taking in its rhythm and key moves, and then grab the nearest available male – me, Isaac, Grandpa – and skip, twirl and dip around our living room with them.

Observe. Perform. Repeat.

Here she is in ‘observe’ mode, watching intently along with Grandma shortly before dragging me off my feet to perform a foxtrot.

There is no photographic or video evidence of this. Nor will there ever be. Trust me, it’s better that way.

While Kara seems to have an instinctive feel for the different dances, I have to admit that my foxtrot looks rather like my tango. Or my waltz. Or my polka. It’s basically all standard ‘daddy dancing’, all executed with my two left feet and with the stiffness that comes both with being middle-aged and having two dodgy knees. Believe me, I make Ainsley Harriott’s attempts at dancefloor dynamism look like John Travolta.

Kara doesn’t care, though. She just wants to dance. And who am I to say no to her?

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