There’s a lot to be said for finding some couple time when you have smalls running around. When did you last have an actual conversation with your other half which wasn’t about the kids, various logistical arrangements, work, or the latest round of the ‘I’m tireder than you’ competition?

DH and I spent Saturday night at Pennyhill Park hotel and spa. It was a birthday pressie last August from my M&D and this was the first chance we’d had to take it at a time when they were available to have the kiddies for the weekend instead of cruising or something.

We got there at midday on Saturday. I hit the amazing spa immediately and did not shift for the next seven and a half hours. After a solo nine holes on the golf course, DH joined me. I’d booked a back massage for us both in a double treatment room, and later a facial for us both. (DH said this was the gayest thing he’d ever done but he looked ten years younger and rather more handsome afterwards). It was bliss. I can’t remember the last time a) I felt so relaxed and b) was being so with DH. We swam, tried out all the thermal rooms (from rubbing crushed ice all over to sweating in a steam room full of mosaics, twinkly lights and soothing music), read, enjoyed the silence as well as the iPod, dozed off on a gel bed in the sensory room, and got wrinkly in the outdoor bubble pool. The best bit was not feeling any pressure to leave, since we had a room for the night.

I have to confess I managed to take the edge off the romance by enjoying the cocktails and wine at dinner a little too much and insisting on having a heated conversation about a fictional 10th wedding anniversary party this summer, which it transpires DH is dead against. But hey, the comfiest bed in the world put things right again, especially with no unplanned wakeup call from the little ones. (The England Rugby squad were staying there after the Twickenham game so there was a fair amount of late night carousing in the distance. DH was VERY excited about having brekkie next to Martin Johnson and his brood.)

We headed home on mothering Sunday after another quick golf/spa hour , and I felt refreshed enough to cook a roastie for eight of us. Two days later, I still feel very chilled, and it was lovely for once to share such a relaxing experience with DH rather than with a girlfriend or just myself.

Needless to say, we’ve gone back to bare minimum communication already and I don’t think DH is going to be getting more excited about spa days than golf any time soon. But it was nice to press the pause button for 24hours. As Ferris Bueller wisely said: ‘Life moves pretty fast. You don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it’.