Guys, if this treatment is what women have been up to all these years, have we been missing out!

It was a tough assignment but somebody had to do it. With the unselfish motive of objective, detached research, I accepted an invitation for a full body massage.

Ms Karen Kelly, one of the directors of re:fresh - a day sanctuary within a city, with facilities at the West Wood Health Club in Clontarf and Leopardstown - invited this correspondent and his wife to be pampered to bits for a day. We thought about it for all of 0.5 seconds and accepted with glee.

"On your arrival, please check in at re:fresh reception where our staff will present you with your robes and day's agenda. Your treatments will include a full body massage with reflexology and a dermalogica or phytomer facial." A facial? Yikes, thought I. Oh who cares; let's go with the flow.

Living closer to Clontarf and being a Northsider to boot, we went there, silently wondering what Brian Boru would have made of this vortex of pampering and men's facials.

Maybe those ancient combatants could have done with it themselves, Boru's demise notwithstanding, after the battle of Clontarf.

We had full use of the impressive gym facilities, the Republic's first 50-metre pool and the hydro spa area. There are few troubles in life or business that cannot melt away while immersed in a jacuzzi or sizzling in a sauna or steam room.

We had a token swim - a length and back of the 50-metre pool. By then, the bewitching hour for the massage was approaching.

The massage was beautiful. The best I have ever received. It started as a relaxation massage that was at once blissful and sublime.

With the big 40 looming next April, there was a sense of "hey, this is an early birthday present". And what a beautiful way to celebrate a body that has stood me in good stead to this milestone.

The hour-and-a-half set aside for the full body massage was planned to conclude with reflexology - a foot massage. But the Chinese therapist had started to work on my back and decided that I was a bad case. She recommended we forget about the reflexology and do a Chinese back massage instead.

Out went the softly, softly, "lie back and imagine you're on a beach in the Bahamas" approach. In came the pain, prodding and pressure technique, making me feel I'd been run over by the national beef herd. Brian Boru would have been happy.

After a light lunch, it was time for the facial. I can't believe I'm writing this - "time for the facial". But after a full body massage, if they'd said: "We're now going to walk naked along Dollymount Strand", I might have said: "What are we waiting for?"

Imagine my surprise, then, when the facial began with a seaweed compound that looked like a paste of mushy green peas being poured along a light tinfoil-like sheet on a massage bed. I was to lie on this so that my spine lay on the goo. Don't ask me how many layers of this, that and the other were put on and taken off my face. But it felt great and it, in turn, was accompanied by a head, neck and shoulder massage.

Guys, if this is what women have been up to all these years, have we been missing out! Mind you, from what I hear, the seaweedy spine and massage-accompanying facial is a cut above the norm when it comes to facials.

So what would it all cost? The whole package for the day would have cost €155 per person, which also would have entitled us to sit in on classes at the West Wood Health Club. An hour-and-a-half massage costs €70, while the facial costs €57.

On a not-unrelated matter, the Health and Safety Authority's annual conference on March 5th and 6th at Dublin Castle looks at workplace stress.

Mr Tom Kitt TD, Minister of State at the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, will open the conference. Mr Frank Cunneen, chairman of the HSA, will discuss managing business pressures using a business excellence model.

Prof Tom Cox of Nottingham University will give an expert view on stress in the workplace from a health and safety perspective.

Ms Patricia Murray, organisational psychologist with the HSA, and Ms Miriam O'Connor of the Health Education Board for Scotland will present "Work Positive", a joint project to tackle work-related stress.

The fee per delegate is €400, or €300 for additional delegates. For details, phone 01- 6147067.

jmarms@irish-times.ie