A short trip to a spa, away from the chaos of family life, proves tougher than it sounds
Last week I spent my longest time yet apart from my son, when I was sent to Spain to review a spa for this very paper. My account will be out in due course, so I’ll say nothing save that it was so fancy that at one point Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem sat down in front of me at lunch, all real and gorgeous, and presumably wondering why they’d sat so close to the palest and most bewildered man in Spain.
Getting to go to spas, or do photoshoots showcasing my favourite socks, is a nice perk of a sometimes unsteady job. Some people might have been torn up at leaving their wife and child for four days, but I was ready to embrace the upsides: uninterrupted sleep, sunny skies, a lack of viscous fluids on every surface. Besides, things like this are not merely pleasurable in and of themselves, they also pay my bills. Memories of such gigs also help a writer feel smug and important during those more idle months where you end up doing that thing where you put water in the very-nearly-finished bottle of washing-up liquid and swish it about a bit so you get another few goes out of it. ‘Isn’t it grand to be an artist, darling?’ we call to our adoring partners, as we peel the teabag from its spoon and place it to one side for re-use later.
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