In The Sanctuary a woman is always a lady and a smell is always a fragrance

I know I’m supposed to be a starving writer, eking out my days in some godforsaken garret, but frankly, sometimes the only way to deal with a problem is to hit it hard with your chequebook.

Which is why I decided to take the day off and cocoon myself in a warren of small dark rooms full of half naked women. No, not that sort. I took myself and my existential crisis off to The Sanctuary in Covent Garden. Mens sana in copore sano and all that. Uh-huh.

The last time I had been to this particular spa was in 1996, when I stood outside trying to summon up the courage to go to a ‘lesbian pamper evening’ (a contradiction in terms, in my experience) but ran away because I was too shy to remove my clothes. Happily, I’ve moved on since then and this time stripped off, decanted myself into a hot pink bikini, shrugged on a bathrobe and strode forth to the Koi Carp room, which, as the name suggests, was decorated in Japanese style, complete with large fish and willow pattern walkways.

Once there, I installed myself on a wickerwork lounger, opened a copy of Vogue and ordered a glass of champagne. Sometimes it has to be done.

I spent the next few hours in a semi-prone position, ordering more champagne and the immune-system-boosting-salad-lunch (high on chick peas, low on carbs) then getting acrobatic, albeit slightly self-consciously, on a swing over the swimming pool, channelling my inner Lolita-slash-70s-pornstar to the max.

Fortified, I made my way to the ‘colours studio’ where 25 ladies lay on sleek black loungers in front of five panels that lit up in time to the sounds of the rainforest, which I found rather trippy but marred somewhat by the barking of a supervisor who looked like Eva Braun and who kept ordering us to 'start ze relaxation process.' I lay under my cashmere blanket and obeyed orders, but was pleased to return to the fish.

Lessons learned: it may be true that money can’t buy you happiness or love but it can buy you 50 minutes of the lovely Vishti rubbing aromatic oils all over your body in a candlelit room. Which amounts pretty much to the same thing.