Porchester Spa, and Minor Achievements

[ailbhe]

Something only students ever say: "I've done an hour of reading, so I deserve to do some laundry as a reward." Even then, I think it's probably only students with a deadline.

So today I have done two loads of laundry, an hour of productive study, tidied the dining room a little to make space to study, and wiped the water off our new garden furniture in a fit of New Toy Protectiveness. I have also felt slightly guilty about not going to get the wedding photos put on cd so that we can upload them to the website, not getting the main couple photo copied small enough to fit into the Thank You cards, not writing the Thank You cards, and so on and so forth. However, I am not allowed to do any of that until my (two weeks late) assignment is done. Then I have nearly a week to get my next assignment in on time.

I have also been meaning to write about the day we spent at the Porchester Spa...

The Hen Night, mark 3.5 or thereabouts

On 26 June, Jen and I met up in Paddington Station for an afternoon of sheer girlie indulgence of the sort which usually frightens me a lot. However, as Jen is able to take me clothes shopping in a non-traumatic way, there is no-one better qualified for taking me to get a facial, that most girlie of girl things.

We met at the bear in the station (after I accidentally bought some stationery - a lovely fat purple hardback notebook, bound like a real book with a ribbon to mark my place, and a gorgeous handmade paper notebook which makes me want to write weddingy things in it) and Jen had a marvellous idea.

Instead of merely going to lunch - almost always an unsatisfactory experience, since it involves finding somewhere that sells something I can and want to eat, and then I complain because, as an ex-waitress, I have a certain understanding of the difficulty levels in providing specific levels of service under specific conditions and I don't appreiciate it when people aren't meeting good standards, and then it's expensive and it's overall not great - er, that sentence ran away with me. Start again.

Instead of just going to lunch in an unknown place with unknown standards of food, pricing and service, Jen thought - marvellously, as I said - of going to the supermarket and buying a picnic, and then going to Hyde Park. So we did.

We bought cheeses, and meats, and fruits, and crackers, and picnic plates and cups and cutlery, and sparkling wine and still water, and we walked in the sun to Hyde Park, where we found a meadow knee-deep in feather-topped grass and sat on Jen's shawl and my towel. Then we lay in the sun drinking sparkling wine, eating languidly, and admiring the grass, the trees, and the sky. We also talked a great deal, and I had to stop drinking wine after a while because my capacity is considerably less than it would be if I practised more.

I set off to find a public toilet, and instead found the biggest, brightest blue dragonfly I had ever seen. This was wonderful, but didn't do anything for my bladder. So we packed up the leftover grapes and so on, and headed to the Spa, pausing at a shopping centre for iced cafe lattes and the toilets.

Porchester Spa is owned and run by the local council. There's a discount for people who live in the area. The building is fairly unremarkable from the outside, for London, and inside is a luxurious rush of marble, underfloor heating, fat little cupids, full-length gilt mirrors, and a Victorian-pseudo-Roman atmosphere that is very, very pleasing. No, honestly, it is - it shouldn't work, but it does. And they have ladies only days, and men only days, and mixed days.

We changed into swimsuits and little blue gingham wraps and were shown around the facilities by a member of staff. She waved us goodbye and we started with the plunge pool.

It's a curved pool, about 4 feet wide by about 12-15 feet long, with steps at both ends. It's kept at 16 degrees celsius. It's just long enough to swim in, barely, and just cool enough to be wonderful after a hot afternoon's alcoholic picnicking.

We followed that with a trip to the sauna - or was it the steam room? - and then back in the plunge pool again. After a while we were so reassured by the variety of sizes, shapes, colours, ages, etc of naked women around that we began to feel inappropriately dressed because we were dressed, so we shed our swimsuits and found that it really does make a difference to the whole sauna / plunge pool experience. Really, it does.

Then we found our little blue gingham wraps and went out to have tea. There are a range of sunloungers under reading lights with coffee tables beside them, and we lounged and drank tea until we worked up the energy to experiment with the Turkish Bath.

Owowowow oomyfeet oomyfeet owowowow.

Plunge pool.

Then I had a facial. I waited outside the room until the previous customer left, then went in, lay down, and got facialled. A series of different things were smeared on to my face and removed, then warm oily something, and I got a face, neck and shoulders massage. I felt incredibly good about this, which is insane, because I was more or less trapped in a room with a strange woman, whom I couldn't see, while wearing only a bikini and a wrap. A series of pleasant, warm and relaxing things happened to my face, and then I was left to lie in the dark while something set. Coming to again was interesting; it felt like the biggest let-down of my life, like having to wake up and go to work on Christmas morning, or having all your toys taken away at once.

So I had more tea to console myself, and we showered the grease and sweat off and headed into the outside world, where it was still light at 8pm, to find food and fiances.

We met Rob at Liverpool St station, but couldn't get hold of Gideon, who was fencing. Rob, Jen and I all found a very good dinner at a place in Brick Lane - The Standard Balti House? they did a nice, but oddly cool, jalfrezi - and then Rob and I went home and collapsed.

Comments

[clanwilliam.livejournal.com]

I am rather frightened at the suggestion that I am eminently qualified for taking people to do "girlie" things.

[ailbhe]

Heh. There's been shopping and facials now. Your role as Protector From All Things Girlie is practically unavoidable. Submit to your fate!

On another note, we need to schedule another Porchester trip, preferably including K.