Lakeside Luxe and lashings of rain

I

I have visited the Lake District off and on over the last 40 years. Mind you it’s been more off than on, simply because of the weather…suffice to say during any of my sojourns it has been simply bucketing  down.  However, for the odd few minutes when the rain has stopped, it has looked heart-stoppingly beautiful and I longed to explore. By the time I’d got the wellies and the waterproofs on…the skies once again opened.  Did Wordsworth ever write about the rain? And did it infiltrate the works of Miss Potter? Can’t say I can recall any descriptions.

Anyway…I no longer care about the weather having just spent a blissful two days in a Spa Suite at the Gilpin Hotel.  Just bring on the rain while I watch through a wall of glass how it changes the light, the shades and the shapes of the trees and shrubs and flowers. Am I bothered? Not a bit…because I don’t need to leave my luxury cocoon as the spa comes to me. Inside this suite of light and space…as well as the spectacular views, are my own private steam room and sauna plus my own therapist, who arrives with all the unguents and skills I need.

Okay, if I weren’t so greedy I could have my food brought too…but, for what is on offer, I am prepared to forego my robe and clothe myself to scoff and savour what is available in the two restaurants. (Oh, and did I mention the cocktails? An historic dry martini)

The main restaurant, the Michelin starred newly re-named Hrishi, delivers local produce in classic traditional style with a surprise – a twist of Asian elegance.   While the more informal, Gilpin Spice offers an enticing choice of Indian, Chinese and Asian tastes.  And while the food excites, the restaurant alone will feed your soul… I would nearly leave my Spa Suite if they would allow me to live in the Chinese section, a sexy take on an opium den.

If there’s any problem about a break at the Gilpin Hotel it is just that I could eat so much more, enjoy even more massages…if the rain would stop and I could work up an appetite.

And then there is the spa itself, a tiny little cottage at Gilpin Lake House, a mere couple of miles from the main hotel – easy walk in galoshes…better in a 4X4…with magical views over its own little lake – Knipe Tarn…should you desire a change of rain splashed scenery.  While the relaxation area in the old BoatHouse is a perfect lovenest…and wild swimming could take on a whole new attraction in that brief moment when the sun comes out.

The answer, I suppose, is to return…and return…and return…hoping to catch a cloudless day…or perhaps just the one lonely cloud…

 

 

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The Power of Touch


A recent survey has shown that massaging babies helps them gain weight more quickly…but in fact it is known (anecdotally rather than scientifically) that babies who are NOT touched can die.  I have seen how tiny scraps of humanity abandoned on the doorstep of the Mother Teresa home in Calcutta are kept alive, not just by being cleaned and fed but by constant holding, cuddling and touching.  Touch is one of the most powerful of treatments. 

Remember falling over as a child the first thing we did was rub the area affected, our mothers told us that we could kiss pains, aches and cuts better…and of course, everything felt so much better when it was touched, stroked and soothed.  Little wonder that massage is the most important and most frequently booked treatment at spas throughout the world.  We all need to be touched.

I am sure that one of the reasons for the extraordinary growth in the number of spas over the last few decades, is because so many of us live alone – by choice or through bereavement or divorce., and consequently don’t have the opportunity to touch and be touched.  Visit a spa and you can enjoy the power of touch to your heart’s content – massage, wraps, manicures, facials a spa provides the lot and all are therapeutic.

Which is why the only thing that really matters at any spa…is the person who touches your body, your therapist. Of course beautiful decor, luxury beds, gowns and towels, sweet scents, low lights, gentle sounds and delicious smells all help to make a great experience, but at the end of the day, the only one of our senses that is truly important is that of touch.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Loving my train of thought

 

 

 

 

 

I’ve always loved trains…not in a trainspotting nerdy fashion…I just like travelling on them…although currently I would advise anyone travelling in the UK to be very wary of that Southern Rail nightmare to and from Gatwick Airport. Otherwise I love being on the rails…in spite of having experienced some truly dodgy journeys over the years, including a three day version from London to Athens way back in the Dark Ages when I was a student with little money. Crowded, slow and occasionally smelly,  I slept on the luggage rack and loved every minute of it.

More recently there was the Trans Siberian from Moscow to Beijing. It had its moments as sometimes there was a dining car…and other days nothing, but always a babushka with a samovar at the end of every corridor. We got accustomed to doing a supermarket sweep before we boarded after each stop-over. Interestingly the men bought beer and pot noodles while the female of the species indulged in yoghurt, bananas and vodka.  However the never-changing scenery of forests and plains was mesmeric and soothing, while the glory of Mongolia made a diet of bananas and vodka seem like nectar.  One of the more unfortunate aspects though was the gauge change when we crossed into China…all doors were locked as were all the lavatories. There were carriages full of the truly distressed especially as the change took almost six hours! I read Thich Nhat Hanh to keep me focussed.

But my latest journey is possibly the one I will love forever – St Pancras to Marseilles on Eurostar. Rarely have I loved a journey more….compared with my last seven flights this was the ultimate trip…even passport and security at the St Pancras International was, dare I say it…civilised and well-mannered.  Add to that a six hour journey with breakfast and lunch served while we seamlessly sped through France. There was room to move, space if not exactly to swing a cat , but possibly a small hamster, charming service and great visuals throughout as the scenery changed constantly.  I could make calls, do some work and charge my phone but also daydream of how this is really the best and stress-free way to travel.  While I still need to fly I promised myself that where possible I would let the train take the strain…and have started looking at rail journeys through Switzerland and Italy, finding out how I can get from A to B in Spain and looking forward to the Bullet later in the year in Japan.  In the meantime I’m just off to Sheffield!

 

 

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Morning Glory…

Oh dear, the health police are at it again…this time the war is on breakfast.  It is no longer deemed good for you…no more should we go to work on an egg, not even the pallid poached version atop some smashed avocado…oh dear no. Unless of course you’re a child at school where it is essential for your physical and mental wellbeing.

Well, I don’t care.  I love breakfast.  I am particularly keen on porridge (or should that be porage) especially when served with brown sugar and cream, although most days I’ll make do with yogurt.  I also love a good bircher-muesli when aligned with a berry compote, but mostly I love the full Monty…a proper fry-up with bacon, sausage, eggs, beans, black pudding and if I can ever get it, cholesterol seducing fried bread.  It is one of my favourite meals and I would eat it every day if I had either the time or the appetite…but mostly I don’t, and it has to wait its turn until I am on holiday and can get somebody else to cook it for me.

Although I must admit I did once, while going on holiday, eat three breakfasts in fourteen hours. But that was due to special circumstances – a monstrous hold-up at Gatwick airport with planes delayed one after the other.  In those days the culinary offerings at the airport were limited…and the only acceptable food (to me anyway) was the good old British breakfast.  Which is why I won’t allow the foodie fascists destroy one meal that gives so much pleasure to so many…including me. Make it two eggs – sunny side up.

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Facing Facts | facial review

For years I’ve been iffy about facials…mostly thinking I didn’t need them in spite of endless beauticians and spa therapists telling me of their efficacy.   A visit to Eve Lom years ago changed my mind, because here was a woman who not only understood what appeared on your face, but also what was going on inside your head, which, in fact can have a direct result on what you show to the world.  So for years I resolved to see no-one except her…but with the amount of time I spent travelling, and the difficulty (and waiting list) to see her…I allowed facials to get to the back of the queue of what I thought I needed.  Miss know-all here thought if she kept her face clean and moisturised that would do…and mostly it will.  However as time went by and because a lot of new developments and techniques appeared on the scene I decided to give the facial another go.

I now try to have a facial on a reasonably regular basis (every 4-8 weeks) and I think my skin is grateful for the attention. I am still searching for the true EL replacement so consequently have been lucky to try a number of different treatments. Some are good but more are merely competent and still highlight many of my original reservations about facials.

My particular beefs are:

  •  therapists who don’t give your skin a thorough examination, rather than a cursory glance before starting
  • a treatment that ends at the chin…and ignores the neck (I am not making this up)
  • a treatment that leaves my face sticky and shiny with products which seem to just sit on the surface
  • and finally a therapist who talks to me as if my dog has just died, using that special caring voice they are obviously trained to use

However, here are two that I have recently experienced which are none of the above

Sadly that is not me post-treatment – it’s there simply to illustrate that gold flakes are used in helping the skin look better and glow!   The Pure Gold and Collagen facial available at the Dorchester Spa, for an eye-watering £220 (but then the price of gold is on the up) is of the more conventional variety. A seriously good cleanse, followed by a terrific facial massage, the sort that brings blood and oxygen rushing to the surface, rather than the desultory stroking that often accompanies such a treatment.  This is followed by a plumping collagen mask and then the final facial, acupressure type massage in which 24 carat gold flakes are used.  Gold is an ancient beauty treatment (especially if your were a Queen of the Nile) but it is a sumptuous and luxurious treat for a special occasion. In fact your skin does look fresher, brighter…and, dare I say it, glowing.

And for something completely different…and no…this isn’t me either…but I was wrapped up in this extraordinary Hannibal Lectorish fashion for the signature FacePlace facial.  This treatment was devised over 40 years ago in West Hollywood and it has taken all this time to hit the UK.

A terrific treatment which includes extractions, oxygenation and galvanic currents.  One step in the cleansing involves hot towels kept in place on your face by a cone shaped heat mask (so it’s NOT for the claustrophobic), after which a tiny hoover removes all the muck, dead cells and blackheads more easily. It is according to the company not so drying as the more usual steam. This is followed by a spray of collagen, followed by Vitamin C extract before the galvanic mask is put in place. This helps all the elements to penetrate as well as tightening. Once you’re used to it you can nod off and relax.  When the great unwrapping takes place your skin looks greatly revived.  Little wonder that the FacePlace treatment is a favourite with LA denizens such as Sofia Coppola and Johnny Depp.   Find it in London at the Sense Spa at the Rosewood Hotel…where it costs £140.

But then as the experts who created it all those years ago claim “FacePlace now…facelift later”

 

 

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Changing Places… Changing Minds

ananda

Just because we change our minds – does it mean we are fickle? indecisive…or just plain woolly minded? There are schools of thought which suggest that once you have made up your mind about something…you should stick with it…like how you vote, whether you prefer brown or white rice, the Stones rather than the Beatles, Bach rather than Mozart.  And yet things constantly shift and change, and so do we, as do our needs and tastes.

For instance I love being by the ocean, and yes the ocean rather than the sea, a river or a lake.  I like the drama of it, it’s constant changing sounds and shades…but I can also settle, for being on the water, by the water – even the aforementioned lakes and rivers not to mention the Caribbean, Aegean or the Med.  And yet I choose to live in the middle of a city.

However I recently came across this photograph which forcibly reminded me how much I am drawn to mountains.  I can’t think why, but I remember exactly when this later love affair began.  I was travelling in India and was offered a side trip to Simla, which I foolishly accepted, especially as it took almost six hours negotiating hairpin bends to arrive in a cloud filled town that resembled Aberdeen.  It was grey, it was raining, it was cold and everything was built from granite in that rather forbidding, unattractive Scottish Gothic style.  I knew I should have stayed on the plains, where it was warm, sunny and colourful. However the following morning was a revelation

Waking early I opened the brown damask curtains (!) to one of the most beautiful scenes I have ever witnessed….stretching out before me into infinity – icy cool in the early morning sun was the  magnificence of the Himalayas.  I knew instantly I wanted to get into them…and no, I had no ambition to scale heights, I simply wanted to mingle among them. So began holidays, trips, journeys walking in the foothills, gradually heading higher to Nepal,  Bhutan and onto Ladakh – the latter still one of my most favourite places in the world – even though our entire group suffered from altitude sickness at various points.

Covered in snow, mountains look as if they belong in a fairytale, while with the onset of spring and summer there is a joy about them from the carpets of wild flowers on the Alps to the rich forests of rhododendrons in the Himalayas…and then, autumn is a total riot of colour.   Mountains can be scary, forbidding, mouth wateringly beautiful even comforting. Walking in the hills is almost like a meditation…you’re on you’re own path, lost in your own thoughts…I don’t need or want to talk. There is a special stillness and a silence about them, the latter occasionally broken by the sound of a bell (in a chapel or on a cow), birdsong, the bark of a dog, the ripple of a stream…or as in the pic above a whole cacophony of goats and streams.  Whether its an Alp, a Cotswold, A Dolomite or a Macgillycuddy…I feel more and more drawn to the uplands.  And yet, while my soul may hanker for the highland my heart firmly belongs to the city.   Funny old world!

 

 

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SSSHHHHHHHHHH…..!

I have for some years been saying that silence is the new luxury and that the time will come when we will pay for it.

Well that time is fast approaching…people are already taking silent retreats, there is a Quiet Mark accreditation scheme awarded to household appliances who have reduced their noise level, while last year Selfridges introduced a quiet area, where at last we could just about hear ourselves think.  While many of us are turning off alert sounds on our phones as well as considering total digital detoxes for a couple of days.  There is even a new movie, In Pursuit of Silence, which explores the impact of noise in our lives.

When you come to think of it, if you can find a quiet corner, we are drowning in noise – on the streets, on buses and trains (at least the latter now have quiet compartments), with people constantly talking, shouting or listening to very loud tinny music, which they are sharing with the rest of us through rather poor quality earphones.

In summer cars roar around with windows open blasting the driver’s favourite tracks for all of us to hear. Is there a lift in any shop, hotel or restaurant that is muzak free?  Why oh why do restaurants and cafes feel it necessary to provide music when there is already sufficient sounds via conversations not to mention that emanating from cutlery and crockery…especially as one of the great design faults of most modern brasseries and bars is the lack of any acoustic awareness.

At last noise pollution – for that is what it is – is recognised for the damage it is doing to our minds and bodies.  The World Health Organisation now cites it as one of the greatest threats to public health. Noise – constant and excessive – is contributing to a range of conditions from sleep problems to strokes. Loud noises, especially sudden ones, immediately puts our body onto alert mode arousing our stress hormones …and often we spend entire days in that state…little wonder we cannot sleep properly.

Perhaps it’s time to search out the quiet corners …even at home…and spend a few minutes in peace.   Or is that called Mindfulness?  Another reason probably for the growth and interest in both mindfulness and meditation…we need the quietude and stillness.  After all we were taught as children that Silence is Golden.

 

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Free Yoga

How clever of Urban Retreat at Como Shambhala to team up with Lululemon and offer free yoga in Hyde Park on Saturday mornings throughout August. Classes are limited to 70…not bad…but what a PR coup to get people into the Metropolitan spa and to Lululemon’s store in Covent Garden. Hopefully warm weather…and with mind and bodies relaxed, participants are invited back to the spa for refreshing teas…juices…and many warm feelings towards both sponsors. Bookings I am sure will ensue…

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Spotting trouble

Summer and sunshine always cause me  problems…I have very fair skin and burn easily. I also have hundreds of freckles.  Even sitting in the shade, which is my natural place under umbrellas, hats. trees…I still manage to attract some sort of glow.  Put me in a boat (I love being on the water) and no matter what I do, I invariably go far too red.  Over the years this has landed me in all sorts of trouble with soreness, blisters and the almost inevitable malignant melanoma.  Fortunately this was diagnosed before it became critical…a ‘freckle’ on my leg had developed into second stage skin cancer, but was caught before doing too much damage.  However it did sufficient damage for I had to undergo an operation where everything was gouged out around it – tissue, muscle etc (rather as with dry rot when you need to ensure that the damage hasn’t spread too widely), followed by a skin graft.

Ever since then I have been assiduous in checking the numerous brown spots on my body – not that I would be able to tell whether they had changed colour or size…but I take note of some of the larger ones , and when I ask the experts, they look at me with pity and tell me that they are only ‘warty’ sort of growths that you get as you grow older.  In fact they are called Seborrhoeic Keratoses, can be lumpy, can feel a little rough and can be seriously unattractive…but at least they don’t kill you.  They can be removed either with a blast of liquid nitrogen and frozen off, or they can scraped or shaved off…so I suppose unless they become uncomfortable or inflamed I might as well learn to live with them.  However it’s the other little spotted brown numbers that need careful scrutiny and that is why I go for regular check-ups at The Mole Clinic.

Almost next door to the London Palladium this specialist service offers peace of mind. A nurse with a microscope and a beady eye examines every inch of your body from the soles of your feet to the crown of your head. Anything that veers from the norm, she photographs, downloads on her computer and dispatches to some skin clinic at a German university. Within 24 hours you get a response which is when you hare off to your doctor. Last year, there were two marks which didn’t meet with beady eyed approval.  At St Mary’s Skin Clinic, one stayed and one was removed with alacrity.  This year, the remaining freckle was checked again (the Clinic keeps your records) and nothing appears to have changed. Phew! A further check of the remaining specks and it’s all clear.

For £140 it is, for me, the best value in town.

www.themoleclinic.co.uk

 

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Lay your sleeping head…

I’m passionate about pillows…I scour the world for them…I have brought silk pillows from China, pure goose down from both Germany and Austria, although I am reliably informed that all the best ones come from Strasbourg (all those geese!) have attempted to buy them from hotels in Vienna and Rome, even tried to steal them from similar institutions in Jaipur and Brussels when they wouldn’t sell them to me.   Seasoned  travellers say that the Four Seasons have the best , they certainly have the best mattresses, while stay at homers swear by John Lewis’s goose down – which I have to admit are disappointing.  I have tried the ones with the foam memory – but they’re not for me…and then quite recently along comes  something called the Knightsbridge Pillow which although made from some state-of-the-art foam, fools you into thinking it’s goose down.

Cleverly designed and constructed by the glorious Dominic Cheetham, osteopath to the stars and everyone else, (wppractice.com), who has spent the last several years thinking and trialling his way through pillowland.   It looks like a normal pillow but it is height adjustable with three adjusters (I’m still on one but thinking I might opt for a second – watch this space!)    It’s neck support, which is concave, is unobtrusive and it is gloriously comfortable.

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