I work with two pretty amazing women, Ms Healthy and Ms Earthy. They both have children, one has grandchildren (Ms Healthy) and one has a very small and lovely baby (Ms Earthy). They each work two amazingly worthwhile and dedicated jobs. They are both kind, giving and generous with their time. In short, these women are two truly remarkable ladies indeed.

Thus it is that I admire them each greatly. I mean, amidst the myriad of tasks they must have to complete each day in order to keep their busy lives ticking over, they manage to do things like cook aduki bean stew for us to eat at the office! I’ve never done that. Ever! I struggle to get up in time to make my breakfast! Oh, and what the hell is an aduki bean?

The other day I was chatting with Ms Healthy as we worked. The topic: my flat.

“Do you have a garden?” she enquired, genuinely interested.

“Yes, I do. It’s a small affair with an air raid shelter at the bottom. It has a little courtyard bit too!”

“Ooh, sounds lovely. What have you planted?”

I looked up, suddenly worried. It had never occured to me to plant anything in my garden. My poor garden! It has a lot of potential, you see, but suffers from the misfortune of being owned by me!

“Nothing, really,” I replied casually, hoping for a change of subject.

“What?” My colleague sounded surprised. “Not even green beans?”

This last comment horrified me. Did green beans really constitute the minimum requirements for a garden? I’d always thought that honour fell to grass? I mean, I actually do have some grass. I even cut it once!

“My dandelions are doing quite well,” I offered, hopefully.

She smiled, kindly. She didn't offer to come round and help, though!

On my way up the escalator out of the DLR this lunch time I was standing behind a young woman in her mid twenties who was chatting to her friend in front of her. They were minding their own business, exchanging idle gossip, when a bunch of young teenagers in school uniform walked up past them. The last of these, a cheeky young boy of about thirteen, took the opportunity to give the girl a subtle pat on her bum as he breezed past. I spotted it but by the time she'd realised what happened, the boy was nowhere to be seen.

She gave me a funny look...I do declare, dear readers, that she thought it was me!

“Why don’t we do something different this time?” read the email from Mme Musicality whom I have known since the age of seven. “I’ve found out about this health spa near Bayswater. Eighteen pounds and you can hang out in there for as long as you like. Who’s up for it?”

I certainly was, as was Miss Colourful, another friend from my school days. And thus it was we found ourselves waiting for Mme Musicality outside The Porchester, an original 1920s spa in West London. Keen to immerse ourselves in a hot, bubbling Jacuzzi, we sent her text saying that we’d see her in there.

The building was beautiful with many of its original features intact and functional. The changing area was an enormous square room that greeted you through large double doors as you entered the building. Women in various stages of undress reclined on loungers around the edge of the room and a beautifully ornate staircase dropped from its centre down to the spa facilities below.

“All very civilised,” I said as I got into my swimsuit. “Now, where’s the Jacuzzi?”

We grabbed our towels and headed down to explore. Our first port of call was a small clear blue pool at the bottom of the stairs. I tested the water with my toe. Freezing. Ice cold.

“That’s a plunge pool,” said Miss Colourful. “Good for the circulation.” We gave it a wide berth and headed through the doors into the rest of the spa.

I was expecting gleaming tiles, pools of blue water and shimmering steam rooms. Instead we were greeted by crumbling walls, verucca infected floors and mildew. Honestly, it looked like a cross between a gas chamber and a sheep dipping shed. Undeterred we continued looking for the Jacuzzi. Through one set of doors we found an incredibly large woman sat on a garden chair being hosed down by an attendant. Yes. Hosed down! Through another we found an empty room with large marble slabs in the centre. We backed out, scared. It became horribly apparent that there wasn’t a Jacuzzi.

“What kind of a fucking health spa is this if it doesn’t even have a bloody hot tub?” I ranted.

We found a steam room and plopped ourselves down on some loungers. Twenty minutes later there was still no sign of Mme Musicality and so I ventured out to look for her. Thinking back, I should never have gone alone. We should have stuck together, Miss Colourful and I, so that I wouldn’t have been the only one traumatised by such a terrible sight. As I wandered round trying to find my friend, I happened upon a treatment room. The room had no door, just an arched entrance through which an enormous lady was lying stark naked on her front on one of the marble slabs. She was but one metre from me with her feet facing towards the entrance and (it’s painful to relive it) her legs apart. She was covered from head to toe in dark green slime, everywhere except for round her anus.

I stood, rooted to the spot like a rabbit in headlights. My mouth gaped but made no sound. It was truly the most horrendous site I’ve ever seen in all my 29 years on this planet. Regaining control of myself, I staggered back, turned and hurried off, bumping in to Mme Musicality on the way.

It took some time for the girls to talk me into leaving the steam room so traumatised was I, but eventually I agreed to try something else.

"It's like something out of The Leage of Gentlemen," I muttered as they led me to the plunge pool. After emmersing outselves in the pointlessly cold water, we headed for the showers.

Even these were miserable affairs. Four dodgy cubicles like you’d find on a second rate campsite in Bognor with swing doors that hide you from your knees to your shoulders leaving your head an feet exposed. We took our place in the queue and busied ourselves with some face masks.

I have to admit to being a people watcher. Not in a perverted way, mind, but I do take an interest in what goes on around me. Thus it was that I was witness to a rather alarming interaction between two women.

The first one, a short middle aged woman, exited one of the cubicles and the second woman went in and began washing her hair. The first woman then returned to the cubicle, leaned in and uttered the following words in a middle eastern accent.

“Excuse me, miss. I forgot to vash my pooossy! Vould you mind if I come in to vash it?”

The second woman, understandably, took a moment to register what was happening but as soon as she did, she uttered a little scream, ran out and hid around the corner. The first woman then went in, washed her “poossy”, came out and said:

“Thank you. I have vashed it now. You may go back.” The second woman returned cautiously and hung her towel over the top of the shower to give herself some more privacy.

“Well,” I said to Mme Musicality as we headed out to get some lunch. “That certainly was different. Next time, though, could you not just invite me to a barbeque?”

Apparently there's nothing worse than a blog tease... someone who promises the goods but fails to deliver.

Just know that I'm not doing it on purpose and it will be worth the wait. Bring on the broadband.