Couldn't pass up the chance for a bit of pampering last Thursday, when I was invited to go to the Summit Hotel with a couple of other wives for some beauty treatments. Hurrah, I thought, as I parked the kids in front of Lady and the Tramp with our lovely and long-suffering housekeeper/childminder (they call them 'diddy' out here, which sort of means aunty, although I have to say that Sanu is a darn sight more helpful and patient than any aunty I know of) and zoomed - well, chugged at least - off in the Landrover. 

In just a few short (and bumpy) minutes we were at the hotel - white, tree-fringed and pretty sumptuous looking. I waved a cheery goodbye to our driver, Dinesh, telling him not to come back for two hours (two whole child-free hours of delicious pampering; the anticipation was scrumptious...).

So, to say the whole thing was anticlimatic is somewhat of an understatement.

We arrived at the 'salon', a small cave-like room squished into the back of the hotel like an afterthought, to be greeted (and I use this term loosely) by a toad of a woman, who looked simultaneously bored and impatient with us. I later realised that these were her only two expressions, so by using them both on us upon our arrival, she was actually putting a bit of effort in. Her scared-looking minions cowered in the murky interior. 

I had booked in for an Indian head massage, manicure and blow dry. The other two wives had manicures, pedicures and facials booked. Toad woman dispatched her staff and they scuttled around doing beauty treatments in the fasted, least relaxed way I have ever experienced. The expression on Toad woman's face almost made you want to apologise for taking up so much of her valuable amphibian time. Time that presumably she thought would be better spent squatting under a nice muddy rock or something. Anyway, the head massage itself was ok, and the manicure passable, but the blow dry is quite possibly the worst I have ever had. A blind six-year old could do a better job. I was told afterwards that this was because I had the misfortune of having Toady herself do the blow dry, rather than one of her underlings, and she is notoriously rubbish (despite owning the place) at all things beauty or hair related. Half way though the blow dry she took a phone call and left someone else holding the dryer over one patch of hair for about ten minutes or so. It got so hot that I was worried I would spontaneously combust. Finally she got off the phone and in a hurried and disinterested way, finished off. 

Do you remember that cartoon from the 1970s called 'the hair bear bunch'? Well, that's what I looked like. Either that or the progeny of medusa and captain caveman.

I said, no, this is too frizzy, it won't do.

She half-heartedly slapped a bit of serum on and brushed it through.

No, said, it's all frizzy, look.

So she shoved a load of curlers in and lumped me in the corner under the dryer for half an hour.

Not once was offered a drink, a magazine - or even a smile.

Ooh, said the other wives as we left, all that for less than a tenner, it's definitely worth coming back, and tipped Toady handsomely (she'll be dining well on flies for the next few weeks with the amount they slipped into her slimy palms).

No, no, I thought, being bored, uncomfortable and made to feel utterly unwelcome is so not worth a tenner, and certainly not worth two hours of my life.

Wish I had stayed in and watched a DVD with the kids instead.