I used to adore taking a bath. I loved luxuriating for ages, listening to some tunes and going through a little beauty regime that I’d honed over the years. Bliss. These days I sneak a few baths in where and when I can but it’s usually more of an in/out job than a long, pampering soak. Nine times out of ten my daughter, who is nearly four, comes in to ‘help’ me. This involves using far too much shower gel on the one part of my body nearest to her, my left boob. Not particularly relaxing.
Things have been a bit tough lately and the stress of an uncertain work situation and some personal stuff had got to me, so a good friend and I decided to spend a day and night at our local spa. She’s an old hand at it so was a good person to go with. I’ve driven past the entrance many times but never been, in fact, I’ve never done the spa thing at all so was a total pamper virgin.
Largely because I don’t make a habit of spa visits (and also because my husband offered to treat me)I thought I ought to make the most of the experience with a decent treatment. I seriously considered a luxury pedicure before concluding it was the wrong time of year given my feet will most likely be encased in boots for the next five months. No, this was about stress relief so I reckoned a massage would be the best option and had a good look at their website to see what delights I could select from. Frankly I needn’t have bothered as I didn’t understand a word. What the buggery bollocks is ‘Media Vespers’? And a ‘Mediterranean Float’ sounded more like something unpleasant you’d find on a bad summer holiday. I decided to go on price and duration. An hour’s full body massage would be mine.
We checked in to our room which was very nice and my friend located the obligatory white towelling robes. We changed into our (in my case newly purchased) swimming stuff, slipped on said robes and headed off down to the spa. With the exception of a badly timed fire drill this was the first time I have ever wandered around a hotel in a state of undress and proceeded to giggle like a school girl.
We entered the spa, complete with more fluffy white towels, and were met with a vision of ancient Rome. I wasn’t entirely sure why it had to Rome and why it had to be ruined rather than newly constructed but no matter, it was quite a sight and presumably added to the sense of luxury and escapism. The Jacuzzi, spa pool etc were fab and an excellent way to let off excess wind unnoticed, I would imagine. There were only a few other occupants, mainly women who were all older than us and therefore more lumpy and bumpy (yay!) but annoyingly also a young couple with alarming body confidence who insisted on taking hundreds of photos of each other prior to what I can only assume would be some earth-shattering hotel shagging. Bastards.
We swam a bit and steamed a bit before drying off a bit in readiness for our treatments. We entered a very dimly lit reception type area where other be-robed woman sat waiting to be summoned for pampering, various. We all looked like we were inmates of some institution and I began to wonder what they were all in for much ones does in a doctor’s surgery. Did I mention how dark it was? It really was dark. Absolutely no natural light, a pleasant enough smell and some appalling but oddly appropriate mood music which stopped short of including whale calls but only just. The staff, dressed in black uniforms so hard to see, scurried silently from room to room like Geishas. With each entrance you sat wondering who would be called next. My friend was duly chosen from the line-up for her pedicure and I sat waiting. One of the multiple tall, young, blonde girls appeared and asked for the ‘Guest of Cooley’ which I took to be me and was shown along an even darker corridor (seriously, it’s a wonder the staff don’t turn into moles) to a small room with a flat table and instructed to strip to my knickers. Having come from the spa I still had my swimming costume on so was offered some paper knickers instead. I could choose between a thong or full briefs. I chose the full briefs – the thong looked like it could have induced a pretty heavy duty paper cut.
Some strategically placed towels spared my modesty and repeating the words ‘she’s probably had her hands on far worse’ in my head, I was prodded, poked and generally pummelled. My shoulders were rubbed, my legs were rubbed, each toe and even at one stage my jowells got the full 'drift away' treatment before all too soon she announced in a floaty voice that it was the ‘end of treatment’. She handed me a ‘prescription’ which included details of all the stuff she’d used on me in an effort to extract more money from me no doubt and I checked myself in the mirror. From what I could see (still VERY dark) I resembled an eighties soap star such was the effect of chlorine swimming pool water and massage oil in my hair.
We had a lovely meal, quite a lot of wine and thoroughly nice time. I removed all available product samples from the hotel room and reacquainted myself with daylight over breakfast the next morning (still dressed in my robe – weird!) and then it was home time and back to the one-boob baths of normality.
Oh well. It was nice while it lasted...
Jec
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