Travel Writer's Memories of Much Pampering

Here’s another photo which my friend and colleague Richard Austin took a long time ago when we worked together as a reporter/photographer team. I imagine he has others far more embarrassing than this - because it was taken when I was subjected to an entire day of pampering at a place called Cedar Falls, in Somerset.

I’ve grown far more used to the concept since then. I must have visited a couple of hundred spas during my press trips around the world - and I’ve been massaged from head to toe. With the exception of one area of the body, I hasten to add, because I am not talking about that sort of pampering.

Outdoor spa at Grotti Giusti in Tuscany

The thing is that when I wrote the article below, I was pretty new to the whole idea. I am of an age where, for most of my life, the idea that a man should have his nails done or anything along those lines was simply out of the question. When I was a young reporter I used to regularly go to a place called the Williton Working Men’s Club where any mention of such stuff would have been so outlandish you’d have been booted out he door.

Men wore cloth caps, not cucumber face-masks designed to smooth those wrinkles.

Lovely spa chill-out space at Petit St Vincent in the Caribbean

Anyway, I’ve got over my male qualms. Perhaps I’ve been in touch with my female side. I don’t know. Nor do I care. But when my pals at Grifco PR and others take me away on exciting press trips to exotic locations around the world and organise pampering sessions for me in expensive spas, I never say no. Just go along with the flow and soak up the experience. ..

However, this is the article I wrote some 18 years ago after a day at the Cedar Falls spa…

Me covered in mud for some reason in a spa in Tuscany - why the mud? I have no idea…

The world of pampering and physical mollycoddling is, traditionally, the preserve of women. Men, certainly those over a certain age, do not tend to put beauty and body-tweaking treatments at the top of their wish-lists.

Which is why I was rather surprised to find myself being thoroughly pampered by professional pamperers the other day. And I mean so pampered, I fell into a trance and dreamed wondrous and ecstatic dreams.

Which isn’t the sort of thing a forty-something working class lad from a West Country council estate expects will ever happen in his life. Men like me were brought up to avoid physical intimacy with anyone other than our chosen female partner. 

In our formative years our bodies, if anything, were things to be protected from punches and kicks dealt by other youths. They were certainly not regarded as things to be beautified or pampered.

So imagine how I felt lying propped by pillows in nought but a towelling robe on a comfortable couch as a women approached my bare feet with meaningful intent. Within a minute or two of her massaging the said appendages I had slipped into a rather pleasant half-slumber, which was interrupted when she said: “So you’ve just started suffering a little lower back pain recently?”

And she was right, I have just begun to notice a regular discomfort in my lower back, thanks to spending too damned long writing at the computer. But I shouldn’t have been surprised at the accuracy of her assertion – Margaretha is reckoned to be one of the top reflexologists in the UK.

So, an hour after entering the hallowed and healthy environs of Cedar Falls health spa near Bishops Lydeard, just a few miles outside Taunton, I was already losing my male-dinosaur take on the subject of professional pampering.

By the end of the day, after having just received my full body Clarin’s massage, I was hopelessly addicted. I have not felt so entirely relaxed for many years. If I could afford it, I’d go and spend a day in a place like Cedar Falls at least once a month – and I can recommend the concept to women looking for birthday present ideas for men. Because, as I say, most middle-aged or older chaps in particular wouldn’t dream of booking such a day for themselves. 

So here’s a brief outline on my interesting and luxurious day out at a health spa. It began with a swim in the large outdoor heated swimming pool. Then there was a quick burn-up in the sauna, followed by another dip in the indoor pool. I was keeping myself busy in order to keep my mind off that reflexology appointment. 

I mean, how could anyone enjoy having their feet rubbed? Far from being fun, that surely would be purgatory? 

In fact, it was extremely pleasant. Margaretha’s talk of bodily meridians and so on went a bit over my head – as did her anatomical announcements on this bit of me and that – but the overall effect of the treatment was unbelievably relaxing. Eventually I had to spend 20 minutes sitting on a recliner in the shade of a tree in the beautiful grounds in order to muster energy for lunch. 

Which, not surprisingly, was a healthy affair. The leek and potato soup was a model of its kind and the salad buffet was enough to fill a normal fellow at lunchtime without the rather tasty mains of cous-cous and lamb that followed. 

One little observation I made in the dining room was how much food my pampered companions were shovelling down their female throats. I say female because Richard Austin and I were the only men in the room. Both trenchermen of note, we were amazed at the massive portions these women – many of whom were overweight – were putting away. 

Whether or not it was my own large lunch that caused me to become so soporific during the next treatment, I do not know. But very soporific I became. Carol, the Indian head massage therapist, suggested I might like to undergo a stress-release exercise before the treatment started in earnest because I’d told her about my son being rushed to hospital with a badly smashed arm and how stressed it had made me.

“And your job,” she smiled. “Working to deadlines on a daily newspaper must be horribly stressful.”

I didn’t tell her that I actually enjoy tight deadlines, which is maybe why she went full bore on the relaxation stuff. Anyway, the result was that I fell into a rather pleasant state of semi-consciousness and remained in it as she massaged my head and shoulders.

I was enjoying it immensely. I could feel shoulder muscles popping and relaxing and it all felt wonderfully soothing. And then, suddenly, I was gone. Way, way into some sort of trance I went and can remember walking along a beautiful sand beach in a state of incredible ecstasy. 

I can still see that beach now. I jumped when Carol gently awoke me and felt bemused when she said I was one of the most relaxed people she’d ever treated. 

That little adventure required another 20 minutes on a recliner. Richard Austin looked at his dozing colleague askance and seemed envious when I drooled over where I’d been.

A swim and a steam-bath later and I was ascending the stairs to the beauty section at Cedar Falls for my final treatment. Now, my wife uses Clarins products and is always going on about how good – and expensive – they are, so I was sort of aux fait with what might happen. Or I thought I was. But I hadn’t read the small print on my invitation.

It said “full body massage”. Actually, I could have them of the trades descriptions act for that description because, of course, there are some bits more-or-less around the middle of the body that are left out during the massage. Which suited me because I am not that sort of bloke and Cedar Falls is not that sort of place. But every other bit of my body was massaged by the jolly, and extremely professional, Trish.

“Oh dear,” she said when working on my mid and lower back. “You are full of knots.”

And I was, I could feel the muscles popping as she worked. Back into netherworld I went – this time without the feeling of pure ecstasy – and was only woken by my own snoring. 

To be honest, I was so relaxed I don’t how I drove home. Indeed, later some friends who do massage told me that three such treatments in one day were really too much for even the craggiest of male dinosaurs. 

Apart from my blissful grin I did have proof of my day’s pampering – I smelled like a million dollars thanks to all those aromatic body oils, and my skin felt like a baby’s.

Having experienced such a relaxing series of treatments I now believe that my boss ought to pay for me to go every month. Failing that I am going to leave this article out for my wife to read in the hopes that she will take a hint next time my birthday comes around.

Am I dead? After a spa treatment somewhere or other - all spas begin to look the same after a while….