I made sure to take some suitable reading matter with me. Basically, this means explosive murdery sort of stuff, which works well with the whole 'enforced serenity' surroundings I just talked about. So I took Mark Billingham's 'Sleepyhead' which was the perfect choice, as it turns out. Recently I've started to develop a taste for crime fiction; none of that stuff has ever really interested me before save for Christopher Brookmyre's offerings, which are mostly too frenzied and surreal to qualify for true 'crime' (in my mind). But in reading 'Sleepyhead' I discovered that I quite like being taken for a ride...unlike some friends of mine who are big crime fiction fans I don't bust a mental gut trying to work out 'whodunnit' (seems I'm a bit of a thicko at heart!) I have some ideas as I read, but I've found I just like going along with it all and then being completely surprised and outwitted at the end. Great fun.
But back to the spa. They're such curious places! I can't quite get my head around wandering about in a dressing gown all day; this is something you only do at home with the telly on and a vat of Tesco's Cheesy Balls, surely? When you don't want anybody to see you. Because they don't suit everybody, fluffy white robes (me included). And the fluffy uniform gives the place a strange sort of falsely intimate feel, because you're not supposed to see people in their dressing gowns and as such, people are a lot chattier with you than I suspect they'd otherwise be. You end up learning far more than you really need to about people's recent operations, family feuds and opinions on household recycling (in retrospect I should have taken my notebook!)
I also have trouble staying straight-faced during the treatments. I can't help it, unfortunately. It's the music mostly, because I don't get the whole 'crashing waves and whale noises' thing being at all relaxing. This, coupled with those massage tables where you have to put your face through a hole at the top and the fact that laughing isn't exactly encouraged, makes for an hilarious experience (for me!) And being English, I feel a bit bad about the concept of a stranger putting themselves out just to make me feel 'relaxed'. At one point I actually apologised to my therapist for taking up her time.
But...the spa I went to has an 'exclusive wax bath' on its treatments list, so I decided to try it out. It consisted of this: being enveloped in candle wax, then a load of clingfilm, then a heavy blanket, after which you're left in the dark for twenty minutes (during which your hands are waxed to your sides so you basically can't move). I spent the entire twenty minutes in the dark giggling at the absurdity of it all...so much that the therapist kept opening the door to check if I was alright. I told her the whale CD was playing up. More great fun!
And it was a fun weekend - I was in good company, and my friend had thoughtfully brought most of the stock from the local Thorntons with her (the spa restaurant shunned chocolate in the same manner that Katie Price shuns natural beauty). But...no more spa-time for at least a year. I just don't think I could handle the stress of it all!
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