So. I’m at the Lifehouse spa, newly opened in Essex. I had an hour to kill before my ‘Oriental Bathing Experience’ so figured I’d do a few laps of the pool and then have a bit of a steam.
Hmm. Interesting. In the UK, the ratio of men to women in spas tends to be about 1 to 40. Not here. It’s raining men. Except, hang about, they’re all neatly paired off, wandering obediently behind their women.
People are swimming in tandem; the pool loungers are all cosied up. Ah well, it’s Essex. Maybe they do things differently here. So I swim a bit and then figure I’ll steam to loosen up before my massage. So I wander into the steam room and, umm, there’s a couple sort of writhing on one of the benchs. Okay, so I’ve been to tons of spas and maybe I've led a blinkered existence but I haven’t hit this situation before. Soo...what’s the etiquette here? Do you:b) get terribly British and go ‘tut tut’ and ‘well, really!’
c) shout ‘Aha, so this is where the action is!’ and jump in, scaring them senseless?
Actually I just sat in the opposite corner, stared at the little lights in the ceiling which were going through the colours of the rainbow in a somewhat frenetic disco sync and said a silent prayer that in this particular spa people wear swimsuits. And felt the waves of frustrated lust and intense irritation crashing (rather unpleasantly) against my etheric body. And thought, well tough.
So they went (letting in tons of cold air, the miserable bastards) and I stretched out on the bench. And was floating off into a little reverie when the bloody door opened again and a man (solo this time) poked his head round the door.
‘Er, are you okay in there?’
‘Fine, thank you.’ Or I would be if the bloody heat ever rose about tepid.
And off he went. Took me a moment to realise that he probably thought I’d passed out. Or maybe he was just on nookie patrol for the night.
By now it had dawned on me. I know, a bit slow. It was Valentine’s Eve, nay Valentine’s weekend, and the good men of Essex were collectively fulfilling their loverly duty and taking their sweethearts to spa.
Bloody great.
I really intensely dislike Valentine’s Day… It's not that I'm not romantic, just that I loathe public displays of obedient dutiful romance. I hate boxes of chocolate, can’t abide stiff red roses, feel nauseous at schmaltzy cards. Why do people feel the urge to go out to restaurants on VD (see, even the initials are disgusting)? The prices are inflated and everything is heart-shaped. Is it that they feel the need for public validation of their relationship? It’s so effing smug. Okay, I’ll shut up. I did write a whole post about this but decided it was too curmudgeonly by half so deleted it.
Anyhow, I took myself off for my Oriential bath thingy. Now I’m not a huge fan of spa ‘rituals’ – I think they’re a bit gimmicky… I’d rather have a really good massage (preferably deep and probing) from someone who knows their stuff rather than be wafted and floated around for a couple of hours. But, I have to say, this was rather nice. My therapist promised a ‘journey’ and by heck, we positively hurtled round the East… We went from Thailand (foot massage) to Bali (tsunami shower) to Malaysia (I forget what happened there) and…oh, I lost track for a bit and came to in Japan where I was left soaking in a pool with a crashing waterfall and a mug of Jasmine tea. At this point the lovely Victoria told me to make a wish and then sprinkled me with gold fairy dust. And then something else dawned on me. The baths were huge and the massage rooms had several couches.
‘Do you usually do more than one person at a time?’ I asked.
‘Oh yes…this is great for…’
Don’t tell me…
Anyhow, there was exfoliation and I said a fervent thank-you, this time to myself for remembering to defuzz so I didn’t look like a demented hobbit. For this gratitude goes go to Bluebeard’s Revenge, which really is pretty damn good stuff..
And then Hot Stones massage. Now I’m sorry but I just don’t really get hot stones… but by this point I was somewhere beyond mellow (despite going solo through the bonded pair bathing experience) and Victoria, bless her, really made some serious inroads into my stress shoulders… And she did that lovely stroking thing… I tell you, if I ever become a millionaire I will pay someone to stroke my back for several hours every night. Now that would zap my insomnia, I bet you.
Anyhow, I came out after nearly two hours in a bit of a daze and decided I couldn’t be bothered to have dinner. I could hear the champagne corks popping in the restaurant and had a pretty fair idea of what it would be like. So I went back to my room and stretched out on the absolutely vast bed.
And then I did think…well, actually, this is a bit of a waste really...
Particularly on Valentine's Day... ;)
http://www.lifehouse.co.uk/
