Entries Tagged 'Stuff' ↓

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I don’t want a catchy title for this. It is what it is.

My 15 year-old cat died today. He didn’t seem to be in pain, and he was friendly and involved with us right up until last night, despite being very weak. But we got up this morning to find he’d passed away in the night.

It’s so incredibly sad. He’s been a part of my life for the entire time I’ve lived in this country. I even wrote an article about him once for a cat magazine. He was a loving, affectionate animal, who always just wanted to be with you, sometimes to the point that you felt smothered by him.

But we loved him. My kids have been so upset today, as have my husband and I. It continues to hit me now and then just how very sad it is and how much I’ll miss him.

I found an old baby blanket that belonged to one of my kids to bury him in. I can’t really say why, but I wanted him to have something of us with him.

Thankfully, my in-laws were okay with us burying him in their back garden. (We don’t have one ourselves.) I couldn’t bear the thought of him going to the tip, like some sort of rubbish. He was so much more than that. He was part of our family.

I miss him. And I think part of me always will.

I recently won a radio contest. I’m not sure why, but I find that a bit embarassing, and I blush a little every time I say it.

BUT ANYWAY, I won, and it was a great prize: a Supreme Pamper Day at a local Spa Seekers establishment. And let me just tell you, this is a fantastic day, at a choice of really nice spas. And the radio station (Southern FM, if anyone is interested) even threw in £30 travel money!

As I live about an hour away from Brighton, and it’s a convenient drive, I opted to redeem my voucher at the Landsdowne Place Hotel in Brighton. Their spa is beautiful, and the staff really set out to make me feel welcome.

Upon arrival, I met Sam, who informed me that she was my beauty therapist for the day. Each beauty therapist has her own treatment room, so being assigned to Sam for all my treatments meant I basically had my own private room for the day. Sam gave me a quick tour of the facilities I’d be using (the ‘Relaxation Room’, complete with sauna, steam room and open showers, and the women’s ‘Locker Room’, where I was given my own locker [although that word seems far too crass when you realise it was a full-size cupboard, with a hanger for my clothes and a shelf for personal items and tall wooden lockable door] and shown where to change and the toilet that was accessible there. I had been warned to bring swimwear (necessary for access to the sauna or steam room, if that’s your sort of thing — I’m not good with too much heat myself — but also just so you feel more comfortable roaming around the place) and Sam told me to change into that and then put on the lovely, thick, white terrycloth robe provided. She instructed me to return to the Relaxation Room (this is the drop-off and pick-up point for clients, and a place to rest, read a magazine, have a drink — instant coffee, numerous teas and water were compimentary all day — etc.) to wait for her to come get me.

When Sam came for me, we went to her treatment room, and my day began. We started with a full-body scrub. (Paper knickers were offered instead of swimwear, but you can wear that, or indeed your own underwear, if you feel more comfortable. Or you can go entirely without if you prefer since you are always covered with multiple towels and all the therapists take great pains to make you feel secure and comfortable.) This was done on a heated table with sea salts, that come in three varieties. (All the products were from the ESPA line, and they are available on the company’s website.) Mine was ‘Relaxing’ and I definitely did that while being scrubbed all over. Sam was really great, and we chatted while she worked. I asked a number of questions and she answered very knowledgeably and thoroughly. She was really good at putting me at ease.

Once my scrub was finished, Sam explained to me that she’d go out for 10 minutes, to allow me to shower off the salt. (There is a shower room as part of each treatment room, complete with shower gel and shampoo and conditioner as well.) Once I was cleaned and robed again, she came back in to change all the salt covered towels for clean ones. (I remarked that they must spend a fortune on towels, and she assured me they do!)

Then I got back onto the table and it was time for a full body massage. Sam asked how I like my massage, which meant how much pressure. I opted for firm, as I have a lot of tension and knotted muscles in my back and neck.

One word of advice here — don’t say ‘firm’ if you don’t really want it. (And you can always change your mind if the pressure is too much.) I knew what I was asking for, and I really wanted my muscles loosened, so I was okay with that. She really had to work hard to get at some of the muscles, especially as it had been a year since my last massage. (I plan to go more often now!) Sometimes the pressure was a bit painful, but the relief afterwards was tremendous, when she was able to work out some of those muscle pains. With any massage, unless you go very regularly, it’s normal to have some soreness afterwards, because muscles have been manipulated in ways that you are unused to. Most of my soreness was in my neck, which tells you a lot about where my tensions focus is!

A full body massage is just that, back and front, neck to soles of the feet, even your fingers get massaged. By the time I was on my back (you start face down) I was so relaxed I could have gone to sleep. Taking her cue from me, Sam only spoke to tell me when she needed me to move, as I was in a place where I had no desire to say anything!

Once the massage was done, Sam moved straight on to a full facial as I was in a perfect position to do this. The warmth on my back from the heated table while she worked on my face, neck and décolletage was absolute bliss! The facial involved numerous scrubs and treatments, and smelled wonderful. I can’t remember when I’ve ever been so relaxed in my life! Scrub, massage, facial is a treatment list I’d recommend for anyone who needs to really relax.

After my morning treatments, I had been promised a ‘light lunch’. (I told my husband this would probably involve a few bits of fruit, a lettuce leaf and a cracker. ) At 12:30, I was escorted to the hotel’s restaurant — in my robe no less! But I was assured that ‘all the guests do that’ — and offered their ‘day menu’. LIGHT? HA! There were ‘lighter bites’ listed, but when you’re told to “choose any two courses” and promised a drink as well (which can be soft drinks, juices or indeed house wine), it’s hard to think ‘light’! I opted for a starter (As I’m basically allergic to sugar desserts are usually a no-go, and I was told I couldn’t deviate from the offered menu. But honestly, I don’t think you’d need to. There were about a half dozen starter or light meal options, the same sort of number of main meals and four desserts.) and a main meal. I had fish chowder to start, which was creamy and full of big chunks of salmon and other fish, and a burger for a main. The burger turned out to be a large, thick patty (seriously, must have been a half pound of meat) on a bun that had been toasted on the grill, with a mound of ’shoestring’ chips and a rocket and pepper salad. Oh my god! It was fantastic food, and the staff was very polite and eager to please. I really did feel pampered after all that!

The day wasn’t over though. My Supreme Pamper Day included painting of fingernails and toenails as well. Sam came to get me from the Relaxation Room again, and we set off to the manicure station. I got to choose two colours of polish (This is apparently the thing now — toes and fingers have no need to match, and it seems a lot of women are choosing subtle fingers and stronger coloured toes, and that’s the route I went as well.) and she set to work. Again she was very good with chatting with me, answering questions about products and such, and it was very enjoyable. Once all was complete, she took me back to the Relaxation Room to dry, and she told me to enjoy the rest of my day. (I was allowed to stay until 17:00 if I wished and make use of any of the facilities.) In the end once I was completely dry, I was really wanting to go home and sleep! I felt very relaxed, and definitely pampered (as it says on the tin!), and I was ready to call it a day.

I found out online that this package costs about £165, or £175 on Friday and weekends. As I went on a Friday, my day came into the higher slot. But, honestly, SO WORTH IT! If you have that sort of money to drop on a spa day like this, I cannot recommend it highly enough. I’m just so grateful to have had a day like this, especially as it’s something I wouldn’t necessarily think to get for myself. But I may again in future! They also do gift vouchers, so you can give such an experience to a woman who wouldn’t think to do it for herself.

Incidentally, I did ask Sam if men went to the Spa for treatments as well. She assured me that they often have as many or more men than women (and later in the day, I did see a couple who was there for treatments together) as many companies send men to the hotel on business, and include a visit to the spa in the package.

This particular spa also features two ‘dual treatment rooms’, where two people go together — whether friends, family members, couple, whatever — and receive their treatments in the same room, each from their own beauty therapist. The only thing I think could have made my day any better was doing it with a friend, so this is a great selling point.

They also sell the full range of ESPA products in the spa itself. They are not cheap, but everything feels terrific, smells good and is made of all natural ingredients. Plus they put a lot of research into the development of really good products, so worth looking into.

I honestly cannot recommend the Lansdowne Place Hotel Spa, or its staff, highly enough. Everyone was wonderful and seemed so intent on giving me the best possible experience. If you are lucky enough to be able to be able to take advantage of a Pamper Day, or even an individual treatment there, definitely go for it! I can assure you it’s an experience you won’t soon forget.

When things haven’t gone my way — if I have an embarrassing moment or a fight with a friend or family member, for example — I have this habit of replaying the whole scene in my head. More than once. Vividly.

Like a movie scene, I can run the experience through my head over and over, hearing every nuance, seeing everything that happened. It can be torturous.

But honestly, I don’t do this to punish myself at all. Although the memories often make me cringe, that isn’t my goal, to make myself fee worse; The reality is, I keep replaying the scene in an effort to change it somehow.

Now I know you can’t change the past. I do get that. But in my head, I keep thinking that maybe it wasn’t as bad as I think. Maybe what I said didn’t really sound that bad. Maybe I didn’t actually say that last, really cutting, remark. Maybe I didn’t really drop that plate and break it to bits.

I know I did. And I know that replaying it doesn’t change it. But it’s just such a hard habit to break. Before I know it, I’ve hit the mental rewind button, and here we go, watching it all over again.

A big focus of my life at the moment is balance. Not too much, not too little, finding the middle line instead. So, I’m not trying to cut out ALL of my replaying. I’m just working to keep it to a minimal amount.

And be a little kinder to myself about my failings in general.

Books are one of my greatest pleasures.

My husband and I seem to disagree TOTALLY about books. I love Sci-fi and Fantasy books; he hates them. He likes trendy new novels; I can get through a few, but I don’t usually like them. He reads factual books; I’d rather gnaw my arm off at the elbow. We can both enjoy biographies, but our ideas of a ‘good biography’ seem to be poles apart.

Me? I love a good story. Throw it into an as-yet non-existent world or universe, add some ability or power nobody really has, chuck in some impending doom that isn’t a possibility in this life, and I’m in heaven. Why? Because it sets my imagination free.

I love when a book goes places we can’t go in this world. That’s the excitement of it for me: not knowing where things will go or what might happen. I like that kind of surprise.

I love worlds where people move things with their minds, spaceships go further than we could get in several lifetimes, vampire masters can be defeated by a girl who raises the dead for a living (Ssshhhh! If you know, don’t tell. ), women who always thought they were perfectly normal can suddenly work magic and do extraordinary things. I love this stuff because a part of me would love to live this stuff. No, I don’t really want to live in a world inhabited by vampire masters (If they’re really out there, then don’t tell me!), but I’d love to be a girl who could kick vampire butt and save the day. I’d love to be more than I think I am, do more than I know I can do.

Is that so strange?

Isn’t that why we go to movies? To forget who we are for a little while, to try to walk in another person’s shoes, a person who can and does do things we cannot?

Books are my own personal movie, running in my head. I can see it all on the big screen and in living colour.

That being the case, why wouldn’t I want to read the stories that are larger than life, completely impossible and full of creativity and imagination? I don’t want to read about what’s been done — I want to read about doing what I wish could possibly be. I want to read about all the things that the server technician, wife and mother-of-three will never do, but would love to think that maybe, in another universe, she could.

I really don’t sleep well. I wonder if I ever have. I sleep poorly, suffer from nightmares and, worst of all, from night terrors. The kind that have you out of bed screaming without really knowing what’s happening or being able to get yourself out of it. And the only blessing is that usually I don’t remember it in the morning.

Why? Why don’t I sleep well? Why do I have these issues?

I think it’s because the god of my childhood was a bastard.

You may not think it’s fair to ‘blame god’ for my past fears or my present sleep problems. And I’m not really. I’m blaming the image I have had of god all my life. An image that I am admittedly responsible for creating and perpetuating, but one I haven’t yet been able to escape. An all-seeing, all-knowing, all-powerful bully, who takes great joy in watching you get screwed over.

Man, that’s sad, powerful stuff, isn’t it? And it all started before I was even five or six years old. As soon as I was old enough to understand it all. And believe me, that was early.

I’ve heard it said that the picture you have of god when you’re a child mirrors the picture you have of your grandfather.

Yeah, that definitely makes sense. My grandfather was a bastard. In fact, both my grandfathers pretty much were, but one more than the other. One definitely hurt me more than the other. And I think he was my cardboard cutout when I was forming my god picture.

Mind you, I had a lot of extra help there. My childhood religion did a LOT to influence that picture. It’s little wonder I’m not religious now. (I’m not sure I could be and remain sane.) But I still can’t really feel safe. Not anywhere. Sometimes I find that terrifying, and other times I just find it unbearably sad.

I grew up in a fundamental Christian family. They were, and are, lovely people, my family. Lovely and loving. However, our religion, THEIR religion, was not.

Take fire and brimstone, add a heap of terror and a child’s understanding of you’re-going-to-hell-if-you-don’t-get-this-exactly-right, tack on the worry that you can’t possibly get it right, mix well with trying extremely hard to get it right and saying the same ’sinner’s prayer’ at least four dozen times (I’m being conservative), being baptized twice (in case it didn’t ‘take’), and finish off with being quite sure it’s still not ‘right‘. My childhood in a bottle, ready to serve.

And the worst part is, being the intelligent, conscientious, precocious child I was, I had to worry about the state of everybody’s else’s soul as well. After all, I was responsible for them knowing ‘the good news‘, too.

And all the while, that super-duper bully was there waiting…just waiting for me to mess up. Put just one foot wrong.

My god, how did I not only survive that, but end up a functional, productive, mostly happy adult?

I have no answer except that I’m a survivor. How else do you make it through? And I always do.

Through a list of average, bad, and VERY BAD men and relationships. Past a number of bosses who seemed bent on emotionally abusing and/or destroying me and my self-esteem. Through a lot of very hard times. But I did. I do. I continue to not only survive, but go beyond that.

I’m married to a good man, a good father, a man I love, a man I have amazing chemistry with and a good friendship with as well. I have three amazing, intelligent and beautiful children. I have a difficult, responsible job that challenges and excites me.

And yet, when I close my eyes, it’s not safe. All the scary things are still there.

I’ve dealt with so much in so many ways. Yes, I’ll raise my hand and say I’ve been through therapy, with a number of different therapists. And it’s better. I don’t sleep with my fists clenched anymore. I don’t wake up with my shoulders aching anymore. But I still don’t sleep well.

I’ve met and comforted my inner child. I’ve faced the things that happened in my childhood. I’ve confronted those that hurt me. I’ve distanced myself from, and reconciled myself to, my family. I’ve left the church. I’ve journalled, talked, done the twelve steps, tried self-hypnosis, used every sleep aid on the market, read every related book I could find, google’d every website. I still don’t sleep well.

I’ve been on this earth quite a number of years, and really past the age of four, I’ve never slept well. I’m coming to the place where I believe I just maybe never will.

And that, is a very lonely, depressing and frightening place. But there is worse. A lot worse. And I know that. So I am grateful for what I have, and I carry on.