Here’s a snap of the mighty Rhone at Arles today which reminds me to mention that I swam sixty lengths this morning. That would be sixty lengths of the small, but beautifully formed pool in a local hotel and spa where I’ve taken a month’s membership.

On joining, I was offered a twenty minute session on the bed of plenitude which was very kind of them even though I had no idea what was involved. Sounds a bit like the horn of plenty which, although also sounding a bit suspect, involves a goat’s horn overflowing with fruit, especially gourds. Hmm – a bed of vegetables.

To begin with, I swam and that was my first mistake as it meant I had to go to bed wet. The thing is, I didn’t know it was actually going to be a bed. When it was first mentioned, the woman on reception explained I’d be going into a box. Just remember the lost in translation thing. Anyway, I had a vision of one of those boxes where only the person’s head is sticking out of the top; the sort of thing one sees in pictures of old torture chambers. A kind of nineteenth century version of waterboarding as practised in Guantanamo Bay hotels.

‘Will my head stick out of the top’, I asked Madame. (Talk about utilising a varied French vocabulary). ‘Non’, she replied, ‘the head will be in the box’. As my friend Eleanor observed, sounds like a coffin. ‘And how will I breathe’, I continued? Madame had the grace to look puzzled and said she must ask a colleague. Following an intense conversation sur le telephone, she returned to confirm that I was right, and my head wouldn’t be in the box. Phew.

I left the pool in some trepidation. The girl asked me what I desired from the menu as an accompaniment to the bed. Soaking wet and without spectacles, I couldn’t even read the menu let alone make any sort of informed choice, largely as I didn’t know what the accompaniment was to. ‘You choose’, I told her taking the easy option. ‘For you, I’m selecting blue and turquoise’, she informed me. Well, thank goodness; just what I’d have picked myself had I the slightest idea what it meant.

I followed her to the bedroom where it was so bloody dark that I tripped over some sort of box affair which turned out to be the step onto the bed. I have no idea how I clambered onto the thing before I laid down on some moveable feast and was wrapped in what seemed to be a camping groundsheet. Then she told me she was going to put some headphones on me and leave the room for twenty minutes. Even in the darkness, she must have observed the panic written large on my face. ‘Here is a button if …’ she ran out of English. ‘If I don’t like it’, I finished her sentence? Oui. Just remind me again where that button is please.

She pressed something else and the bed and I descended into unseen lapping water. Then she cleared off. Well, thanks a bunch for that. Below me, the water began to vibrate against the backs of my legs. Above me, stars twinkled in the blackness. And in my ears, a flock of robins began to tweet. The tweeting quickly reached a crescendo as the little birds were apparently attacked by a rogue eagle. I assumed I was supposed to relax but my body was rigid with fear. How long does 20 minutes last?

Body stiff, it occurred to me that, not for the first time, no-one in my family knew where I was. And in all the ways my life might terminate, never had it occurred to me that I might finish my days drowning in a five star spa at the hands of a ruthless bunch of marauding robins.

Suddenly, it was over. The girl breezed in and pressed the button to raise me from the watery depths. ‘How was your treatment’, she asked? Then she said she was going again whilst I removed myself. I don’t think so Mademoiselle. There’s no way I’m getting off the bed of plenitude without assistance. I don’t know if she’s had training in lifting the infirm but she had to learn pretty damn quick how to get me off that thing and onto solid ground. She was embarrassed. I was greatly relieved in all senses.

‘Now you join me for the tisane’, she said politely. No thanks, I’m bloody freezing and in a state of shock. I’m off for a hot shower.