THREE months after that most glamorous of operations bunion removal I found myself with a shapelier foot but a considerably less svelte body.
All that enforced rest had left me half a stone heavier and with all the energy of a slug, so the offer to spend a week at the renowned Le Saint Geran Hotel in Mauritius following their ‘slimming desire’ programme which includes a four-handed massage was irresistible.
First day..
GREETED by a squad of hotel staff I’m ushered into the Givenchy spa, where I am weighed and pinched with metal forceps by my personal trainer, Maggie. She gives my upper body and legs the OK but looks shocked by my ample middle and seems surprised that I have only two children. Tomorrow we start in earnest in the pool.
After a jetlag-busting massage, I have the ‘slimming desire’ dinner, which includes a delicious pineapple tart. I wonder how this can possibly be slimming but am assured by the charming waiter that it is ‘all in the molecules’.
Friday..
MY first session in the pool with Maggie is a revelation. Feel rather smug because she thinks my front crawl is slick but then she makes me propel myself through the water in a cycling motion while holding aquatic dumbbells.
Fiendishly difficult and makes me feel rather like Alice in Wonderland, working very hard to keep still.
Workout in the pool is followed by a session in a bubbling hydrotherapy bath which, while not exactly unpleasant, is the closest I hope I will ever get to being in the spin cycle of a washing machine.
Lunch is a munificent three portions: cold celery soup, fillet of beef and another pineapple tart. Feel very virtuous as I push the beef around on my plate, decline the bread and look away as they bring petit fours with my citronella tea.
After lying on the beach trying to spot the breasts that have been surgically enhanced, it’s off for a session in the gym with the gorgeous Ludovic who, for me, puts the desire into this ‘slimming desire’ programme.
Am mortified when he puts me on the ‘senior exercise programme’and insist on doing more than he recommends to prove how young and fit I really am.
Saturday…
THE laid-back Maggie has been replaced by Prakash, who shows no mercy. He keeps asking me how often I go to the gym at home and, when I mumble something about going whenever I have time, he orders me to do another four lengths of underwater bicycling.
After lunch decide to go on an undersea walk, which looks quite charmingly Jules Verne-ish and not strenuous at all.
Indescribable sensation walking, wearing a plastic astronaut helmet connected to the mother ship by a plastic tube, through shoals of fish. Am quite disconcerted, though, when the guide gives me a black phallic object to hold a sea cucumber and then takes my picture, his leer clearly visible through his visor.
Adjourn to the beachside bar to watch the sunset, drinking citronella tea rather than one of the sensational cocktails that
everyone else is having.
Feeling a little desolate about spending the evening alone, I have a four-handed massage with ylangylang oil. This involves a man and a woman massaging every inch of my body with scented unguents and is probably the closest I am ever going to get to a threesome!
It was recommended to me by a French friend who said it was the only massage where they really got to grips with her bottom.
Afterwards, stagger to the dining room where I am served with another delicious meal of smoked marlin, grilled tuna and strawberry ice-cream. Find it hard to believe that so much utterly delicious food can really be slimming but the chef swears it is all about portion control.
Am also allowed a glass of wine, which again I find hard to believe, but the truth will out when I get weighed on Wednesday.
Back in my room, attempt to watch Minority Report but Tom Cruise is no match for the luscious fatigue that overwhelms me. For the first time in many weeks I sleep without waking up at four in the morning in an existential panic.
Sunday…
OVERSLEEP and gulp down the poached egg and kiwi fruit that makes up my ‘slimming desire’ breakfast. The butler looks rather hurt when I don’t receive the complimentary rose with due ceremony.
Hurtle down the corridor to the pool, where I am instantly brought to my senses by front-crawl sprints. Achieve a best time of 19 seconds, which Ludovic tells me isn’t bad for a woman of my age.
I instantly decide to take up marathon running and ask Ludovic if he thinks I could run one this time next year. He laughs for quite a long time then says kindly I might be able to manage a 10k.
Venture afterwards to the local market at Flacq, which bristles with bindis, gorgeous jangling bracelets, pashminas and saris. Am persuaded into buying two saris after the stallholder drapes one around me and tells me how tall and elegant it makes me look. As I have only a hand mirror to look in, I can’t tell if he is telling the truth or whether I really look like Cherie Blair going to an Asian fundraiser.
Very few other tourists in the market.
Maybe they have all gone to the ubiquitously advertised Rude clothing store. Am keen to pay a visit there myself but have to get back to the Givenchy spa for something called the No Complex massage.
This is advertised by a picture of a model, wearing a pink wisp of material, who clearly has no complex at all about her perfect bottom, tummy and thighs. Having always been a little sceptical about anti-cellulite creams, I find it hard to believe there is no gain without pain. But, as my stomach has lately been looking not so much dimpled as cratered with cellulite like the inside of an Aero bar, I decide I have nothing to lose.
Except my complexes, of course, as the treatment consists of Menek, a beautiful Mauritian man, twiddling the flesh on my bum, thighs, tummy and, yes, breasts to break down the fat deposits with special site-specific creams. He says I need at least four treatments to see an effect but, as I stand under the cruel light of my bathroom mirror that night, I swear that my hips and tummy look a little less lunar-like.
Monday…
BAD news have just heard that a dear friend has been diagnosed with inoperable cancer. Feel horribly dislocated lying on a perfect, white, sandy beach, being waited on hand and foot, while he is going through so much pain.
Maggie, my trainer, is briskly sympathetic and tells me I will feel better after a workout, which strangely enough I do. Endorphins are wonderful things. Resolve to keep up this level of activity when I get home.
In completely irrational moment decide to learn how to waterski.
Given that I am probably the most uncoordinated person on the planet, who failed her driving test 13 times, who singularly failed to learn how to play tennis and who was never picked for any sports team, learning to waterski is a tall order. But, then again, so is dealing with cancer.
The waterski instructors are tough but patient. We spend about 30 minutes on deck learning how to stand up in the skis. Finally, I get into the water and spend an hour just trying to get up without success. My legs feel like they are being ripped apart. But slowly and surely I make progress and after three hours in the water, I finally stand up, knees bent, arms straight, head up.
Manage an almost complete circuit of the lagoon but spoil it all by falling off just as I reach the boathouse. However, I get a round of applause from the instructor, who tells me: ‘You stuck with it, madame. I am the best teacher and I have to tell you I was worried but you did it.’ Feel convinced that if I can learn to waterski, my friend can beat his cancer.
After my waterski triumph, I can’t face another evening eating alone and Sally, the charming rep with ITC Classics, which has arranged my holiday, takes pity on me and invites me to the most beguiling restaurant in Grande Baie called Il Pescatore.
Waiter brings me what looks like a fruit juice but, after gulping it down, I realise it is laced with rum.
This is definitely not part of the ‘slimming desire’ programme but it encourages Sally to spill the beans about all the celebrities who come to Mauritius. Naturally, I am too discreet to name names but Harry Potter fans should start booking now.
Tuesday…
MAGGIE makes me work extra hard when I confess about the cocktail. Makes me swim three lengths underwater and then I have to run six lengths forwards and backwards in the pool with those dumbbells. Very hard work but brilliant apparently for toning all those wobbly bits and for getting the heart rate up.
It is certainly a lot more strenuous than my sporadic trips to my local pool where I plod up and down for 20 minutes and by the end of it just feel wet. Maggie also shows me how to swim back-crawl in a straight line it’s all a question of keeping the arms straight.
She encourages me to concentrate on front and back crawl and keep breast stroke to the minimum because it puts so much strain on the knees. By end of session am moving effortlessly through the water, making me wish I had paid more attention to swimming lessons at school.
In the afternoon I have an appointment with world-famous pedicurist Bastien Gonzalez. Three months after major foot surgery, my feet look like they could have been in the trenches but, after an hour in the salon, they are pink, polished and perfect. I had read a lot of hype about the Bastien Gonzalez pedicure and, sadly for my bank balance, it is all true.
At dinner that night tuna carpaccio, soya-infused chicken with steamed vegetables and oranges in ginger amuse myself by playing the guess the nationality game.
Brits are instantly recognisable by their sunburn, Russians by the perfection of the women and the fact that the men all have two cell phones.
French women are easy to spot because their sarongs are always tied just so and they always look just a little bit bored.
Final day…
PICK at my breakfast because I know the weigh-in is at noon. Work extra hard in the pool and try not to drink anything. At last Maggie leads me discreetly into the ladies’ changing room, where I step on to the scales. Have lost 5lb and more than an inch from my waist pretty good going for a week.
Maggie says sternly that this is only the beginning and I have a lot more work to do when I get home.
She would like me to lose at least a stone more. To that end she has given me a series of workouts to practise at home.
Make a pact with myself to keep at it or forfeit the right to come back here again.
And come back I definitely shall, especially when my butler, the lovely Rajiv, packs my suitcase for me, with tissue paper. That’s what I call service.
Head for home thinner, fitter and, I hope, more able to cope with all the challenges that lie ahead. I never thought that a holiday so apparently self-indulgent would teach me so much about my own capabilities. I went to lose weight but I lost something more important my fear of the future.
As one of the waiters said to me when I was crying in a corner: ‘Every day has its own pain.’
Getting there
Seven nights in a junior suite at Le Saint Geran Hotel cost from Pounds 3,400 per person.This includes return flights with British Airways, full board and private transfers plus the Rejuvenation Package which comprises a tailor-made programme including a one- hour gym session daily, various body scrubs,massages and other treatments.Call ITC Classics (01244 355527,www.itcclassics.co.uk).
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