With a little gentle coaxing, Laura agrees to spend the weekend with the girls.  She’s wide-eyed as she takes in the sheer style, space and luxury of the spotless apartment, with its fully equipped kitchen, balcony and beautifully furnished living area. There’s satellite TV, a DVD player, even a dishwasher!  She’s already starting to feel as chilled as the champagne that awaited you all on your arrival.

Nothing can prepare Laura for the next surprise, as fully-qualified therapists arrive at the apartment to deliver a ‘facial’ and a back, neck and shoulder massage.  Oh, what bliss… the aches and pains just melt away under their practised fingers.  She could really doze off to sleep now – but there’s a lively bar just a few yards down the road.  Karaoke?  (Well OK, not really Laura’s scene but if it keeps the rest of them happy, maybe just for half an hour?)

Five hours later, Laura’s hoarse from belting out ‘I Will Survive’ with gusto and at quite some decibels, but you’re all back at the apartment for some ‘girly chat’ and giggles.  A quick snack prepared in the kitchenette and you’re ready for slumber in those wonderful, sumptuous beds. 

Waking refreshed, you all decide that a little ‘retail therapy’ is just what’s required to put the icing on the cake, so it’s off to the city centre.  Returning to the apartment, laden with bags, you see that it has been cleaned and vacuumed from end to end.   The dishwasher has been emptied and the contents stored away neatly.  There’s crisp, fresh linen on the beds and clean, white, fluffy towels in the bathroom.

Serviced apartments aren’t just for fun-seekers.  They’re a ‘home from home’ for business people too, providing a totally self-contained and un-cramped alternative to the ‘four walls’ of the hotel room.   No more do you have to contend with the contents of your briefcase spilling out on the bed and your laptop perched precariously on your knee. Everything that the office would provide – and more – is at your fingertips:  access to broadband, answer phone, fax… you name it.  When your work is done for the day, you don’t have to be a ‘Billy-no-mates’, dining self-consciously on your own in the restaurant and being cornered in the bar by the inevitable bore who laughs loudly at his own bad jokes, slaps you on the back and insists on calling you ‘mate’.  Instead, you can invite a few colleagues or friends around to your apartment for a drink and a chat, in private and comfort, just as if you were at home.   Or you can just relax on your own and enjoy the peace and comfort that the serviced apartment provides. 

And Laura?  Back home, having dumped her twin-set and tweeds in favour of jeans and a t-shirt, she comes to the conclusion that it’s not so very bad, really.  Fifty is ‘the new forty’, they say.  And that cheeky chap in the Karaoke bar did whisper to her that she had a great pair of legs…