You beauty! Kniepp Joint & Muscle Mineral Bath Salt

I’m finally working out again. And it’s not pretty. And it hurts. But I’m very close to revisiting that virtuous cycle I once inhabited, all thanks to a trainer called Amélie Khellaf. Oh, but she’s French; with all the accompanying sardonic wit and glamour. Not a teeny Tracy Anderson mini-me but a gorgeous wall of woman: bosoms and honed legs and hard arse and the best upper arms this side of the Channel.

She trains me in my postage stamp-sized garden — a full-on, kvetch-filled hour of cardio and exercises, many of which she has designed herself (damn her). They produce the most intricate array of aches and pains. She’s ruthless but funny — although I’m not laughing the next morning when I can’t lower myself on to the loo without holding on to something.

And so I stumbled across Kneipp Joint & Muscle Mineral Bath Salt with arnica. It is my friend. The bottle is plasticky. The salts are a grim orange. The smell, while not unpleasant, is far from ambrosial. But it works. A 15-minute soak in the Berocca-hued water and I can rise without grunting, walk without groaning. And I suspect it has diuretic qualities, too, because water retention is no longer a thing. No bloat. I can see the remarkable effect that Amélie is having on my waistline. Which makes it a whole lot easier to forgive her — most of the time.

Kneipp Joint & Muscle Mineral Bath Salt, £7.61, at feelunique.com