my week of rest and relaxation

I tried five london spas in five days and wrote about it

I got my first spa membership while I was in Oxford living on the boat. I needed somewhere to shower and it was only £40 a month more than BuzzGym. As in the gym, the spa showers had the dispiriting push button which you needed to push every five seconds to keep the water running; I became an expert at showering one-handed with the other hand pressed to the button. The sauna and steam room were both small and often crowded, and the steam room sometimes smelt bad, but through the winter, when the cold woke me at 5am, the sauna was my lifeline. I sat there in the mornings until my bones felt warm again. I loved swimming lazy laps in the pool or floating there without anyone bothering me. I’m pretty sure I got a UTI from the jacuzzi one time. But it was an essential part of my emotional management toolkit. Since moving back onto land, I’ve missed my spa habit. So when a multi-millionaire gave me some money to go to the Claridge’s spa I obviously jumped at the chance and in my heat-induced hypomanic state decided that I would go to not just one spa, but five spas. A spa every day for a week. Afterwards I would emerge cleansed and pure. My cortisol would be the lowest that anyone’s cortisol had ever been. Five spas in five days would surely fix me.