Low life | 28 July 2012

Well, I found the Adulis restaurant and my online date was there. She didn’t muck about, and neither for once did I, and when we parted at noon the next day, I was very tired. So I was relieved to be checking in later at a spa hotel on the north Cornish coast called the Scarlet, to write a travel piece about their two-day organic wine-tasting break called ‘Naturally into wine’. It was the perfect opportunity to recuperate, I imagined. A gentle swim, perhaps, a stroll on the beach, then a glass or two of Peasant’s Varooka in the evening to see me out.

A cheerful woman called Cherie checked me in. Should she put me down for the beach yoga class, or perhaps the transformational dancing, before breakfast? ‘Transformational dancing!’ I said. ‘Before breakfast!’ ‘It’s brilliant,’ she said. ‘Oh, go on, then,’ I said, fool that I am.