NEED TO KNOW

A three-night stay in a Deluxe Versace City View Room at the five-star Palazzo Versace Dubai, including a complimentary upgrade from B&B to half-board and return Emirates flights from London Heathrow, costs from £919 per person with Emirates Holidays (based on two sharing).

Price includes complimentary one-day/ one-park access to Dubai Parks and Resorts.

Valid for travel on selected dates from Aug 10 to Oct 31 2019.

See emiratesholidays. com or call 020 8972 8949. the children, not to mention managing the family business, my life very soon became pretty much house- or hospital-bound. School runs were managed between friends. My former highmaintenance beauty routine was a thing of the past. Even a quick drink at the local pub was out of the question, with Mum finding replacement carers impossible to adjust to. While I thanked my lucky stars we had the space to accommodate her and the means to support her, our home, still my refuge, was also now my prison.

Heartbreakingly, we lost her last year. Totally flattened by grief, I spent the next few months hibernating still further, without the energy or impetus to emerge from my bubble.

That is, until a friend gently suggested that what I needed was to get away. It took a while to convince me – during which time her original idea snowballed into a full-scale luxury minibreak. It would, she promised, remind me that beyond the grief there might be things to look forward to. Since it required sun, sand, spa and no small amount of sizzle, the only place this could possibly take place, she assured me, was Dubai. Specifically, the Palazzo Versace, Dubai.

Who knew? So with husband at home for once, we set off – but not without a fair number of panic attacks. Would he remember the after-school pick-ups? Would the dogs get walked enough? Would I disappear into a puff of smoke once I left my postcode? I was so out of touch I even had to ask if it was allowed to smoke, drink and show your legs in the United Arab Emirates. Luckily, it was so long since I’d been anywhere, all my existing holiday clothes seemed to have come back into fashion.

Once in the plush surrounds of the Emirates lounge, gin and tonic in hand, I felt myself relax – just a little. Sinking into my spacious businessclass seat, browsing the menu, strolling to the in-flight bar – all seemingly superficial things, but little acts that the muscle memory in my mind seemed to translate into some longforgotten self-confidence.

Dubai’s sensory overload hit us from every angle: heat, noise, and razzle dazzle. The Palazzo Versace hotel is at first glance very… Versace. Reminiscent of a 16th-century Italian palace, Palazzo Versace Dubai is a neoclassical ode to the brand, its outre form of fashion reflected across everything from statuettes to scatter cushions and ashtrays. Its flagship Giardino restaurant presents a marble “terrazzo” flooring, columns and a wall covering inspired by the jungle motif of the Versace wallpaper collection.

Our Premier Versace Club Creek View suites were expansive, furnished with the Versace Home Collection in buttery tones of gold, beige and salmon and with balcony views over the creek as it reflected at once sunlight and then twinkling lights of the river boats and yachts that passed.

We basked in the sun, often having the choice of the hotel’s three sprawling pools to ourselves. Space and solitude was not something I had factored into my mini-break.

We ate and drank. I remembered what it was to have an appetite – and from Michelin-starred executive chef Mansour Memarian’s elaborate food theatre in Persian restaurant Enigma, to elegant Italian food in Vanitas, the food rivalled that of anywhere else in the world.

We spa-ed. Oh, how we spa-ed. We were massaged, steamed, and bubbled by expert therapists with the deftest of touches. With the first treatment – an anti-ageing chardonnay ritual using grape seed extracts – I joked that I’d been training from the inside out all the way over.

The exfoliation didn’t just feel like skin I was shedding, but months and years of stress and sadness. Then there were two all-over body massages, a facial, a de-stress treatment and even a happiness hour and a half combining essential oils, a body scrub, reflexology, shiatsu, cranio, Thai massage and trigger-point touch work to decrease stress levels and release endorphins. It just took sunrise yoga in the Como Garden overlooking the creek to top off the bliss.

Being away from my children wasn’t the wrench I’d feared. It turns out that with a smartphone you don’t just get to see their faces every day, you get to manage the same minuteby-minute minutiae as you do at home.

We talked. Hesitantly at first, but helped by the odd glass of bubbly, I tentatively shared memories the very fact of travelling had brought to the surface. I tried to find the words to describe my inner numb, the turmoil in my head that didn’t seem connected to my heart. My friend, a seasoned retreat traveller used to detoxing from sugar, caffeine and stress, speculated that it would come, and that day three would likely be peak fallout. And it was. From the moment I woke, I felt a tight and invisible band around my lungs, my diaphragm and my heart. As the day went on, it rose, culminating at bedtime as a black hole opened up in my soul, and the tears started. My body was wracked with

The exfoliation didn’t just feel like skin I was shedding, but months and years of stress and sadness

sobs – I think I actually howled. And when I finally stopped, I slept. For a whole five hours – the most since I’d lost Mum.

And so, feeling a little lighter, on our final day, began a whole new list of firsts. We left my newest refuge and checked Burj Al Arab off my wishlist, with some teen-like giggles and silliness as we made gold teeth from the Gold Bar’s gold-flecked water and imagined lives for the people around us. We returned to Qs Bar and Lounge – Quincy Jones’s eponymous club at the Versace hotel, a glam melting pot of people – where its resident singer David Davis created a curiously intimate atmosphere.

And it turns out that my renaissance didn’t end there. I’ve started making plans again. My to-do list stretches beyond other people – kids, husband, extended family – to plans I may put in place for me. A job! More travel! Dreams!

In the end, my glamorous girls’ getaway gave me exactly what I didn’t know I was looking for. I haven’t rediscovered my old lifestyle. Far from it (though I’m looking forward to another taste of it when I’ve saved up for our return trip).

I’ve found something much more important.

I’ve found me again.

To help people suffering with Parkinson’s, please donate via parkinsons.org.uk