Mrs Windbag seems to enjoy having herself pampered and since she is always so wonderful to me (I have to say that she reads this) and since the brilliance of her birthday gift to me (I might of mentioned before but anyway she put on a gig in our front room). I thought she deserved something nice for her birthday so I promised to take her away to a spa.

It has to be said that I did this with a certain amount of trepidation. In fact I did wonder whether I could actually pay for one of her friends to go with her. But dismissed this idea as too weird (even for me).

So what was I worried about? Well for starters I'm not really the sort of person who likes to walk around semi naked in public. With very good reason too as the few people who have caught me naked or semi-naked will vouch.

I've also got an aversion to been intimate with strangers and I view a back massage (which we were booked in for) as pretty intimate.

As it happens neither of these two areas of concern proved to be the biggest issue for me. 

We started the day using the general facilities (basically different sorts of pools; rooms full of steam and rooms that were very hot). We were booked in for a 'Mud treatment' and the aforementioned massage.

I very quickly discovered that I have issues with rooms full of steam and saunas. I attempted to go into the steam room and immediately started hyperventilating (I think it was the steam rather than the thought of how much I was paying). I just felt that I couldn't breathe and had to make a quick exit.

So next we tried the Sauna and the sheer heat had a very similar effect on me. So in the end we had to seek shelter in the aromatherapy room which was neither too warm or too steamy for me.

The pools I could deal with. Once I'd seen the pot bellies on a couple of the other blokes I didn't feel too bad about my physique (besides we'd gone to Chester where I was hopeful that nobody would recognise me). I have to say though that the jets of water that seemed to squirt from every angle were a bit uncomfortable on the old nether regions.

After a pleasant lunch it was time to go for our Mud treatment. We were taken to a room which had a little shower cubicle. The instructions were written on the wall for us. First you were supposed to daub yourself with mud. Next you sat in the cubicle which would be by then full of steam. This apparently combined in some way with the mud to do something great to your skin. Once this was all over you finish by showering the mud off. 

So I gamely daubed myself with mud. Of course you are probably thinking - how did you deal with the steam Pete? Well the answer is not very well. I opened the cubicle and that was enough. I started hyperventilating again. To make matters worse the shower was in the same cubicle. Initially I hoped that the steam would subside and I would be able to shower myself. After a while though it seemed clear that this wasn't going to happen.

Poor old Mrs Windbag. She couldn't concentrate on getting all the benefit of the steam and the mud because of my mounting fear that I was going to be stuck with the mud on a permanent basis. 

In the end with some help from my long suffering other half I managed to shower off by just putting one body part in at a time. It was pretty stressful though, for both of us.

Straight after our mud treatment we headed off for our massage. Afterwards the masseuse commented that I had a lot of tension around my neck. I suspect this might have been a result of the earlier mud treatment.

Anyway the moral of the story is if you want a nice relaxing spa break don't go with a neurotic Yorkshire man!

Music to Slit your wrists to

Public Image Limited live in Leeds

Not Swearing!

Reviewing Myspace Acts

Stuff I Love - Outnumbered

A couple of albums reviewed

Back Issues

Send your comments, articles, insults, poetry, pictures, outpourings of love etc

The Credits