I AM lying face down on what looks alarmingly like an operating table, in a room that reminds me of my doctor's waiting room, and I'm wearing fewer clothes than is strictly comfortable for a control freak such as myself.

In comes a no-nonsense woman wearing the sort of Waffen-SS style uniform that strikes the fear of God into me each time I undergo the ritualistic agony of a scrape and polish procedure at the dentist's.

As I mentally prepare for another lecture on my inferior flossing technique, she speaks.

"Just relax," she says, cracking her knuckles in a sinister fashion as she bears down on me for the crossing of a new frontier in pain.

It had all seemed such a good idea when, not all that long ago, I was asked how I would like to mark the passage of yet another year.

My birthday comes so close to Christmas that it really is very difficult to know what I want as a present.

The house already gets cluttered with things I am not certain I want for Christmas, so for my birthday I try to focus on doing things rather than gathering yet more material goods.

So this time I thought, why not head down South for a spa weekend, and while I'm there, why not have a massage? I'd never had one before, at least not a professional one, and it seemed like a great way to forget for at least half an hour that I now was another twelve months nearer the grave.

How soothing it would be, lying in comfortable, warm surroundings, listening to whale noises and inhaling smell-to-get-well aromatherapy oils.

It's so relaxing, apparently, that people often fall asleep, which would be a rare treat for me, my insomnia being what it is.

Now I'm in a confined space with Brunnhild, however, things don't seem quite so rosy. She offers me three oils to sniff.

"Very nice," I tell her.

"Yes, but which do you WANT?" she urges through clenched teeth. This panics me into a second's delay, so she decides for me and gets stuck in with the Relaxation Blend before I have the chance to ask her if she would just like to talk instead.

It's fair to say she has a firm approach to the laying on of hands, and as she works I get an insight I've never before had into exactly how and where my muscles, bones and tendons are connected.

"Try to relax," I say to myself. "Just think random thoughts. Let your mind wander."

So I let my mind wander, and instead of ambling about, smelling the roses, it launches itself into a procession of anxious thoughts.

I bet her hands hurt by the end of the day, I mused. They should, if there's any justice.

Will she end up getting arthritis? Why is she concentrating so hard on that particular bit? Has she found a fatal disease? Where exactly is she going to massage me next?

Finally, the session comes to an end, and naturally I have not fallen into the blissful slumber of the just.

Instead, I am cocking an eye at the clock to make sure she's given me my full half-hour session. You can't be too careful, even when you're in pain. She shoos me out of her nice clean treatment room and I totter off feeling not exactly relaxed.

I'm a bit light-headed, but that could just be the way I bolted off the bed to the relative safety of the changing-room.

Next year, I must do something else to unwind. Paintballing, maybe? Abseiling down a disused coal mine ? Or even pulling my own fingernails out by the roots...

Updated: 09:17 Wednesday, January 19, 2005