This is how it began: Move house, shedding accumulated junk of two decades. Led from old house sobbing. Two weeks later dog has to be put down after hideous illness. Two weeks later son nearly killed in car crash.
And so, with shoulders as immovable as a coat hanger, a perpetual headache and a temper like a bear I find myself in a large pool full of warm seawater doing exercises which are being instructed in rapid French. Nearby is my daughter trying hard not to laugh.We are at the Thalassa centre for four days of thalassotherapy in Dinard, a pretty Breton town. Katie has just started her first job and is also completely wired and in need of a wind-down. And her French A-level proves invaluable.
Thalassotherapy originated in Brittany six years ago, and is a cleansing, soothing and rejuvenating system, entirely based on seawater and mineral-rich marine extracts. The theory is that by being continually immersed in warm seawater the body absorbs its mineral salts and trace elements. The majority of its spas are in Brittany - sites, for obvious reasons, are always coastal. To maintain its purity the water is pumped from 500 metres offshore, and each guest uses 1,000 litres a day. The Dinard spa, a wing of the Novotel, is perched on top of low cliffs with a stupendous view across the bay to the town and St. Malo which you can enjoy from the windows of many of the treatment rooms.
The atmosphere is very much that of a health farm - people shuffling round in dressing gowns, towels slung round their necks. We watched one man set off along the public cliff path in his bathrobe and nobody turned a hair. The spa areas are tiled and clinical in appearance, very much like a French pharmacy - none of the wickerwork furniture, plants and chintz curtains that appear in British health farms - but nevertheless perfectly warm and comfortable. There is a plentiful supply of cosy dry bathrobes (you are perpetually wet) and I kept losing my bonnet - the obligatory striped swimming hat required for the big, indoor seawater swimming pool.
The treatments vary, and a programme best suited to your needs is put together. Six days is considered the most beneficial period, and certainly after our four we could have done with more.
Fortunately we had been warned about the douche à jet , but the unwary could be pretty unhinged by a lady standing 15 feet away behind a high-pressure hose directing the jet straight at you. Equally brisk was the douche sous marine , which is a gentler hosing down in a tank of water where you watch your thighs flap about underwater like giant rays.
We loved algotherapie where we were coated in a pale brown goo of seaweed and mineral extracts, wrapped in clingfilm and warmed up by an outer heated layer of plastic. Katie recommended her Tonic Legs treat ment where her legs were wrapped and pressurised to improve circulation and reduce the heavy feeling she often gets from sitting at a desk, and I had a Thai Nuad Bo Lann massage (on dry land, in a sun-filled room facing the ocean) which was out of this world.
The hotel also has a beauty salon and it's nice to have a manicure between treatments or get your hair sorted out after a day of dunking it in water. We had vowed to be really healthy, so we used the gym, did a body sculpt class, borrowed the hotel bikes and wobbled into Dinard and did lots of swimming, steam and Jacuzzis. However, we bottled out of the diet dining room, for the simple reason it was completely empty and the lure of Breton food and good cheer from the throng in the gourmet salon was too good to miss.
Because Dinard has such a good golf course, many couples had gone their separate golfing/thalassing ways during the day.
We met Jane from England who was on her fourth visit and had brought her sister for the first time. Jane had been badly burnt in an accident as a child and wished she'd known about Thalassa years ago as it has helped her so much. She also, as we did, found it very good value for money compared with an English health farm. 'I don't think anyone can upset me for a while after I've been here,' she says. 'Please don't write about it, I want it to be a well-kept secret!'
Getting there
By air: Caroline Boucher flew Ryanair from Stansted (00 353 1 812 12 12).
By sea: Brittany Ferries Portsmouth-St Malo (0870 536 0360)
By train: Eurostar to Paris then two hours from Gare Montparnasse.(French Travel Service 08702 414243)
Thalass Dinard, Avenue du Cheateau Hébert, Dinard 35802; (00 33 299 16 78 10). The hotel is shortly opening a series of self-contained studio apartments.
Website: www.thalasso-france.com/Centres.htm
