CORNWALL ...

... two nights in St Ives for rest, relaxation, pasties and ice-cream.

What I didn’t expect was to feel exhausted and gargantuan within half hour of arriving.

First of all, the hotel was up a cliff. Well, I say cliff whereas my Significant (thin) Other called it a gentle incline. Whatever, it was enough to kill me and make me wish I’d packed lighter when all I had in my case was two pairs of knickers, a mobile phone and a KitKat, just in case there was a proliferation of fish.

Anyway, I quickly forgot about the impromptu workout once we were settled in the hotel, a Cornish paradise which didn’t give you a map and details of what time breakfast was the next morning, but a complimentary cream tea on arrival. A cream tea! For free! Blimey.

I almost forgot our bedroom was on the fourth floor while chewing, but reality soon bit me and my failing legs as we trudged slowly upstairs, with me pretending to appreciate the views at every turn in order to catch my breath.

Our room was nice, topped off with an exceptional sea view. But I guess when you’re paying £160 a night, and you’re on the fourth floor, that isn’t too much to ask.

The shower wasn’t made for big birds though, and if I’d dropped the soap it’s safe to say my bottom would have gone through the glass and possibly into Devon. I started to have a more extreme type of sweats thereafter, the kind which aren’t caused by exercise but self-induced neuroses where you think the world is conspiring against you and your bulk.

First there was the hotel’s location, then came the fourth floor room. The shower size left a lot to be desired, and the table and chairs in our swanky suite were made of trendy Italian Perspex.

As in flimsy. As in creak, creak, snap, snap potential. So I avoided them like the plague, the memory of crashing to the ground on a knackered plastic garden chair, bruising my ample pride and my enormous you know what, flashing before me.

So I went for the safe option, and I sat on the bed. What could go wrong, right? You know that creak, creak, snap, snap I mentioned earlier? Amplify that by 50. Children stopped playing. Traffic ground to a halt. Pasty fillers put down their potatoes and cheese.

For one brief moment on this glorious day, the population of St Ives looked towards the far horizon wondering where the storm was coming from.

I had broken the bed.

Imagine telling the hotel owner what had happened had I been a lithe lightweight. I’m sure, for the money we were paying, they would have been deeply apologetic. Of course, the bed then would have been at fault.

However, the conversation I had with myself as I tried to get up and see the damage was less forgiving. S(t)O got down on his knees to check under it for damage while I stood inconsolable in the corner, feeling like a fat unpopular kid in school who broke the pummel horse on the first
jump over.

He told me, in the assuaging and fat free language of love, there was a slat missing and – get this – it could have happened to anyone.

Trouble was, it happened to me. Big fat me. And nothing he could say lessened my embarrassment, especially because it happened again moments later. Yes, seriously.

The bed, he said, wasn’t put together right and didn’t have a middle support. That knowledge was of no compensation to me though, and for the rest of our break I slept uneasily on the side reinforced with our suitcases, debating if I should complain about the wonky frame and ask for a refund or at least a new room.

Next time we go away, I’ll be certain to ask if the hotel’s on the flat, if there’s a lift to all floors, if the shower is big enough to turn around in and the bed is a divan.

Of course I didn’t mention our fragile sleeping arrangements, and when it came to signing out I said we’d had a lovely time, a short break – in more ways than one – I’d remember for a long time to come.