Sweet shower so delicious (Beck Eleven)

Sweet shower so delicious

BECK ELEVEN

Last updated 14:12 18/06/2011

 

If you've got a steaming pile of dog whoopsie, then pick it up and rub your face in it, because that is what this column is going to feel like.

I feel as if I should be apologising, and I swear I would have taken you with me if I could, but the day after Monday's stinking earthquakes, I went to Wellington where I stayed in a swanky hotel and ate almost non- stop for two days.

Every now and then in a journalist's life, a little something called a junket pops up. This can roundly be described as a free trip and mine was to join other writers previewing Wellington on a Plate, the capital city's foodie festival.

Now, if there is any chance of extracting a tiny bit of sympathy, I should divulge that we were tasked with two 12-hour days of non-stop eating. No sympathy? Fair enough.

But they shouldn't have shown me the hotel room first.

Like many of you, I had spent Monday evening cleaning up a mess of jams, the dirt from swan-diving pot plants, and a minor flood followed by a wakeful night of bed-shaking aftershocks.

So the focus of this trip should have been food, but they just should not have revealed the hotel room first. If Cupid's arrow could bond woman and hotel room, then I had been struck.

I thought I could hear birds singing, but that was probably left-over auditory hallucinations from the elevator musak.

I briefly perched on the edge of the bed to deal with an errant sock and made such a loud and involuntary groan-sigh of happiness that if the walls had been thin, and they were not, neighbouring rooms would have assumed I was watching a special movie, know what I mean?

I could have acquainted myself with that room for hours, but the itinerary demanded we eat from 10am to 10pm. Still no sympathy? Fair enough.

But as soon as my room and I could be reunited, Operation Use Water Willy Nilly began in earnest. A frivolous name maybe, but a serious operation, trust me.

I've been house-sitting for a couple of weeks in a great place, but it has water pressure that can barely soak my hair, and Monday's aftershocks made it worse, so I was looking forward to this hotel shower with an almost perverse obsession.

If that earthquake gave us a double whammy on Monday, I gave the Wellington water supply a triple-whammy on Tuesday.

First, I lay in a hot bath, then I lay in the bath with the shower running, and last, I drained the bath and just stood under the shower.

Then I used two towels and rifled through the little collection of hotel shampoos and smellies (otherwise known as free things) until I found moisturiser and practically used the whole bottle on myself. (Don't forget I'm a plus-size model, so I need more than most).

Then I lay on that heavenly bed in those heavenly sheets and read the pillow menu - yes, the pillow menu - but I was much too tired to order anything.

Sympathy yet?

Don't bother to answer that.

I had showered and moisturised my skin until I was so soft that an entrepreneurial lamb would have made gloves and hats out of me.

On Wednesday, I woke up and showered until finger-wrinkles threatened to go bodywide.

Then I got up and ate for another 12 hours.

Never mind Wellington on a Plate. Tectonic plates are a much tougher job.