Thank you Lifehouse

Last week, I decided to up sticks and sod off to a spa for a night. This slipped disc is not getting better, I feel rough and frankly more than a bit fed up. My parents have driven all the way from Scotland to help out with the toddler. So, off I went, car packed with a great friend, champagne, Haribo, magazines and a bikini.

We arrived 80 minutes later. (Would have been 65 had we not got lost in Thorpe-Le-Soken. How you even achieve that is quite something given that it has 2 streets)

Behold, the wonderful Lifehouse.

Have you been? No, we hadn’t either. And I strongly recommend that you don’t go. Don’t even think about it. Because, I want to keep this magical place all to myself.

A beautifully designed spa with a seamless mix of old and new architecture, stunning gardens and a genuine welcome. Whoever it was that designed this space, I salute you. You’ve thought of everything. I imagine it to be a bit like Disney, enchanting, flowing smoothly but with little fairies underground, working tirelessly to ensure that it all runs well. You can’t see them but you know they’re there. No conveyor belt spa treatments here, oh no.

I will admit that when we arrived in our perfectly-appointed room, I thought to myself “i’m bored already” but I figured out pretty quickly that my mind is not used to switching off. As mum to a 17-month-old, I am always on the go, always one step ahead of myself, planning the next thing that I need to do to keep the house and child looking vaguely normal by bedtime. It took me a while to leave all of that behind. But, clothes shed in favour of my fluffy robe and slippers and a quick mooch around to get our bearings and we were in the spa mood.

We tried to find fault with it, course we did, we’re British. But, nope, we’ve got nothing. Our 23 hour stay was perfection. As we lay in our massage chairs, in a perfectly lit chill out room, we inhaled and exhaled and that was it. Yes, they have a fabulous gym, yes you can hire bikes to explore the grounds. But we did none of that. We just sat. We swam, we steamed, we had Espa facials, we ate, we drank, we slept. We were, for that day, just us.

As we checked out and reluctantly put our outside clothes back on again, the friendly cleaner smiled and asked if we’d had a good time. Goodness me, hadn’t we just? We’ll be back Lifehouse, again and again.