This article was written for Annabel & Grace, which is now part of Rest Less.
Marvellous-Mother-In-Law and I snuck off for a couple of nights at a nearby spa and have returned home feeling refreshed and renewed (unfortunately we still have the fatty bods – she MADE me drink the Sauvignon). It was a brilliant 48 hours of relaxation with an aromatherapy massage, walks in the drizzle, gentle exercise, scrummy (portion controlled) food and, for our homemade entertainment, we rather naughtily gossiped about our fellow guests.
There was BareFeet&Bosoms – a woman who thought it perfectly OK to have breakfast in the elegant dining room wearing no shoes, a capacious fuscia dressing gown that barely covered her e-n-o-r-m-o-u-s bust, with her blonde hair all akimbo (her husband, by contrast, was impeccably dressed) and who talked of nothing but her newly decorated tented-ceiling bedroom.
The yoga teacher, or PillowFace as we nicknamed her, was a wondrous sight to behold: her face was as smooth as a baby’s bottom but – rather startingly – had the appearance of an inflated balloon; her decolletage and wrinkly arms were an incongruous pairing with her lovely ironed visage, but hey, despite my guess that she was touching 70, good for her as she could certainly do a mean downward dog.
Most cruelly (and this one came from the devilish mind of MMIL) was DeathHead, an elderly but imposing woman with a severe black chignon who acted as if she owned the place; this lady didn’t have a scrap of fat on her body and, in particular, anywhere near her gaunt chiselled cheekbones. Oddly she had a penchant for combining a Chanel suit with the white towelling slippers provided FOC by the spa and spent her time alone, chatting only to the staff. Mysterious, very mysterious.
MrsGrump was an elderly uppercrust lady who sometimes went about in a wheelchair, sometimes not, as the fancy took her. We often heard her cut glass voice chatting on about her various adventures and very interesting they sounded too. Especially when she was, rather unexpectedly, discussing with a fellow OAP what sex would be like with George Clooney. Perhaps they should have consulted SkinnyMinny, who dressed elegantly in black whatever the time of day and – rather impressively – appeared in the dining room with a different male companion for every meal.
Last, and probably least, there was MargaretTheMoonie and her creepy son, who Marvellous-Mother-In-Law was absolutely convinced tried to recruit her into a loopy rebirthing society that apparently didn’t have a name, so secret were its intentions!
Anyhow, whatever they looked like or however they behaved, the wonderfully mixed bag of guests at the spa all had one thing in common – they were making an effort to look after themselves. Rather like the chorus girls in this gorgeous clip from the 1933 American musical Roman Scandals.