Confessions from a Health Farm (Confessions, Book 8) by Timothy Lea

Author:Timothy Lea
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780007549108
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2013-09-10T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 5

The next morning it is all I can do to get up – even with Mrs Chalfont helping me. Jesus, but she is a goer, that woman! I must have left the French windows open because she and her blooming pooch came bounding up on the bed before I can get my eyes half open. Cold nose, wet tongue licking your face. It is a diabolical way to wake someone – and the dog isn’t much better.

‘I always think it’s the nicest way to start the day,’ says Mrs C, as she shoulders me to one side and scrambles under the sheets.

‘Not in front of the dog!’ I say. I mean, sitting there with its head to one side and its tongue hanging out, it makes me go all goose pimply. I would not mind so much if it would stop wagging its tail.

Eventually, I get rid of them both by pretending to have a heart attack. I don’t have to act very hard either. I am so knackered I can hardly pull my trousers on. The combination of Mrs Chalfont and starvation is more shagging than skipping in a suit of armour.

I stagger into breakfast and my eye is greeted by what must be half a dwarf grapefruit, rocking from side to side at the bottom of a bowl. I mention ‘sugar’ and people stop eating five tables away. I never go a bundle on grapefruit at the best of times – not unless it comes out of a tin – and this one is so sour it makes the inside of my mouth pucker up like a tortoise’s neck. Nevertheless, I am so hungry that I eat every bit of it and save the pips till last as a special treat. By the time I have had my rusk and a cup of herbal tea – unsweetened, of course – I have accumulated enough strength to crawl back to my room. It is just as well that I get out of the dining room when I do because the fresh green stalks of the flowers in the vase on my table are becoming almost irresistible.

‘Hello, Weary Willy,’ sings out Doctor Tensor, earning my respect for his instant diagnosis. ‘Have a good breakfast?’

‘Smashing,’ I say. ‘You don’t need a cook in this place, do you? Just a bloke to open the packets of biscuits.’

‘Don’t be like that, my old mate,’ says Dr T scraping the egg off his Old Etonian tie – I know it is an Old Etonian tie because it has ‘Old Etonian’ embroidered all over it. ‘You need a bit of rhythmical exercise. Put your track suit on and bugger off to the gym.’

‘What’s that?’ I asked.

‘It’s a large room with wall bars and ropes and all that caper.’

‘I know that!’ I hiss the words through clenched teeth. ‘I meant, what is rhythmical exercise?’

‘Doing exercises to music. I always recommend that because I know what it is. I know what a colonic lavage is but I don’t recommend that.

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