It's cold today; not the cold that can be eased by the addition of a big sweater and extra thick socks, but that deep, biting cold that goes right through to the marrow, and stays there. My house is freezing today and I'm writing to warm myself up. There is one problem with this, however, for whilst typing does keep my hands active and relatively frostbite-free, the rest of me is ffffreeezing. I don't like putting the heating on during the day except when the girls are at home, in just the same way that I don't ever turn on the television. There's no real reason for this, it's just what I'm used to, but I'm not used to being this cold and I am tempted to turn on the boiler, or stick my numb limbs in the bottom of the Aga to ease my discomfort. No, it's no good, the heating has to go on, or else I'm going to end up with hyperthermia.

I'm now wearing two fleeces and I'm still not warming up. I wore an M&S vest in to work the other day, as my edit suite is unusually chilly, and one of the editors walked past as I was showing it off to my friend Julie and said, 'That's not very sexy.' Well, it wasn't intended to stir the loins of my male colleagues; I just put it on because it made me feel cosy. Not many people know this, but it was inappropriate choice of underwear that led to the untimely death of Captain Oates during Scott's fateful Antarctic expedition of 1911. The men were getting dressed in their tent whilst the icy winds whipped at the canvas, and when Oates put on his vest, Scott turned to him and said, 'Lawrence, old chap, I wouldn't put that singlet on if I were you, it may be practical, but it's not very sexy.' And then Oates stood up, put on his coat, uttered the immortal line,

'I'm going out without a vest on. I may be some time.' and flounced off into the wintery grip of the Arctic's frostbitten fingers, never to be seen again.

Brrrrrrrrrrr. Makes me long for the time I was in sunnier climes. But strange things happen on holiday, especially when you visit LaLa land.

On my last trip out there I was treated to a facial and massage; my American friend Sharon kindly offered to treat me to some pampering as a 40th birthday present. When you're showing all seven signs of aging and then some, you know you have to start looking after your skin, and a massage is a wondrous thing, especially when it's done right. The last massage I had was in a tent on a beach in Egypt. A nice husband and wife team worked the tent and I got the man, which was a result as far as I was concerned. I found his technique a little ropey, and it turned out that he did have a rather novel way of relaxing himself whilst he was working my tired muscles. As I lay on my front, I let my upturned hand rest on the table; I was happily listening to the sound of the waves gently lapping the shore, when I felt a strange, but not entirely unfamiliar body part resting in my cupped hand. I may have been a bit dozy, but I recognise a trouser portion when I feel it. Maybe the masseur was feeling charitable, or maybe he was being a bad man, who knows? But I can't say I was terribly happy at the thought of being used as a human truss. He didn't speak much English, so it would have been hard for him to understand, 'Remove it or lose it.' I've heard of people getting 'extras' in massage parlours but I never expected to be one of them. I wish I could say I was making all this up, but this is the stuff that happens to me.

After that experience I was looking forward to the thought of a safe and relaxed massage at the hands of a skilled American technician - but that's not what I got.

I should have got a sense of what lay ahead when I saw Sharon's face after her turn on the table. I joined her in the steam room after my facial and she looked like she'd just been run over by a bus. Her only words were, 'Boy, was she hard on my knots.' And I thought I was tougher than Sharon. I thought she was being a wimp. I welcomed the thought of strong hands kneading away at my tense muscles, so I walked into the therapy room with a confident swagger. Bring it on, I thought, unleash hell. And that's just what she did.

I knew it was going to be tough, but I didn't expect to have to submit to Enya. She's never featured very highly on my list of favourite Irish singers, in fact I think she's way down there at the very bottom, along with Foster and Allen and Daniel O'Donnell, but I tried block her out, I tried to relax and I tried to enjoy the massage. I tried and I failed.

Massage should be fluid and rhythmical, hands should flow over the body, bringing about total relaxation and a state of bliss. Bliss wasn't exactly the word I'd have chosen; I felt like a naughty child being reprimanded by an overbearing nanny with Attention Deficit Disorder. There was prodding, slapping, pinching and more slapping, but despite Enya caterwauling about Orinoco Flow, there was precious little fluidity coming from those pinching, poking paws. I thought, if I fall asleep she's going to kill me; this is so painful, so disjointed and such an unpleasant experience that I just want it to be over. An hour later and it was over. I was released from the torture chamber; it was hard to choose between the pain of having to listen to endless Celtic wail music, and the insufferable pummelling at the hands of the lady in white. I was too embarrassed to complain, and so was Sharon, so we both tipped our masseuse $5.00 and limped out into the sunlight.

But we hadn't had enough discomfort for one day, because we were off for tea in a quaint English-style tea shoppee. I have to describe this afternoon delight to you, if only because I'm still in complete awe of the establishment in question. A nice lady with lacquered hair greeted us at the door. She left us for a few moments in order to prepare our table, which gave us time to look around her shop. There were lots of frilly things, some quaint wooden knick-knacks and some dolls with porcelain faces - you know, the sinister kind that come alive at night and try to strangle you in your bed. Come to think of it, I think our masseuse may have been partly porcelain, but I digress. The lady came back and showed us to our table, passing on the way a large hat stand. On passing it she gestured to the array of colourful hats and told us we were welcome to wear any of them for the duration of our stay. Apparently, nice English ladies only drink tea whilst wearing hats, which is a strange and little-know fact, which had entirely passed me by. As I write this I'm wearing a nice little Philip Treacy number, whilst sipping on a mug of Lady Grey. Very Nice too.

So we declined the hats and looked at the menu, which came in the shape of a fan, and not a common-or-garden menu shape. I chose Darjeeling and Sharon chose something quite strong and almost undrinkable - which is saying something because I'll drink almost any kind of tea. So we called the tea expert over, another nice lady with lacquered hair and sporting a delightfully frilled apron, and she offered to top up the tea with more hot water to make it more drinkable. And I thought, 'Blasphemy! she can't do that.' Nobody should do that, because adding more hot water to stewed tea, just makes weaker stewed tea.

Then came the plates of sandwiches and dainty cakes. The tiny rectangular cucumber sandwiches had dill sprinkles on one end, which I surmised had been affixed to the bread by a quick lick by the cook when nobody was looking (nothing wrong with that in my book, as long as you're not in Ainsley Harriot's kitchen). Tasted nice, though. Sitting in the parlour was a surreal experience. I believe it had been decorated in the style of Lizzie Borden's front room, which was apparently such a ghastly mish-mash of blousy flowers and clashing pastels that it caused poor Lizzie to go quite mad and bludgeon her parents to death with a big, frilly axe from the Lawrence Lewellyn-Bowen 'Killing Me Softly' range. Lizzie was released from prison some years later and spent her remaining years designing beige sofas for DFS.

So that's all for now. Please accept my sincere apologies for the lack of product this month. Output has eased and it's now several degrees warmer than when I first started writing this piece, but the weirdness of my life continues unabated. I'll do my best to catch up as soon as I can.


© Kate Boydell 2004. All rights reserved. e-mail: [email protected]. Close window.