IT was the best of times, it was the worst of times. What the Dickens was I doing at a health spa? What seemed improbable at best became inexorable when I married Rachel last year. In contrast to me, Mrs Hedges has an exemplary lifestyle—my children joke that she will live to be 150—and is a connoisseur of all things mindful, body and spirit.
I think taking her fishing for our honeymoon may have influenced the reason that I found myself at Chiva-Som in Thailand, where she had been five years ago. The last time I had been to Thailand was 28 years before that and much of Bangkok has changed out of all recognition. There is a newish airport, ever more skyscrapers and giant flyovers that criss-cross the metropolis. One thing, however, hasn’t changed, the Mandarin Oriental Hotel. It remains sublime,
