Thanks Mum, I'd Rather Not

My mum and step-dad are visiting us from the UK at the moment and they treated us to a weekend away and volunteered to look after our daughter too. “Great, a weekend away” most normal people would say but not me.

Now I am a bit funny with matters relating to our daughter, I never used to be like this, but I start thinking the worst but only when it comes to our daughter. Whilst all couples need some together time, I feel that she is as much a part of us as we are, so we all go away together as I don’t like leaving our daughter out.

Much like the Royal Family in my home country, who never have the heirs to the throne fly together in case the plane were to crash and they’re all BBQ’d. I also don’t like traveling with just me and my wife without our daughter even on a car journey, just in case the unimaginable were to happen to us. This is mainly because we live here alone, all our family are back in the UK and whilst we have some really close friends here and a contingency plan, it just doesn’t bare thinking about.

So when my mum decided to treat us to a weekend away even though it was less than an hours drive away, I started to consider driving in separate cars just in case, but my wife; Lizzie convinced me that as my mum and step-dad were here, at least our daughter would be safe with her grandparents should our car spontaneously combust as we enter the 101.

So, I go along with it, after all we all need some downtime as often as we can and as we work hard during the week and don’t get much chance to rest up, I thought I should do what most or our clients do and relax of a weekend instead. So off we drive (nervously) up the 101 to Santa Barbara to a spa weekend.

We went to a place in Santa Barbara; The Ritz Carlton Spa , which is much like any other luxury provincial hotel. There’s a lounge full of couples who haven’t spoken to one another since 1992 and a dining room where the food arrives underneath a silver ta-dah cloche like some lame rabbit trick by an equally lame magician act in Las Vegas.

I began my visit by filling in a form. I don’t know what it was about as I’d left my glasses in my car. I was then presented with what looked like a Scarface-sized bowl of powdered substance lovingly infused with scents that only a trained customs sniffer dog could detect, some of which was then put into a small heart-shaped lace handbag. I’m not quite sure they’d had me in mind when they were developing this idea.

Clutching my lace bag full of lemon-scented powdered substance, I was invited to sit in a pool of water that is kept at 98F, and after I’d been parboiled, I was microwaved in an infrared sauna and then steamed in a small room full of hot fog.

Rather than the feeling of a human being, I did feel like some left over dinner at this point, and there was more. In the massage that followed, a lady vigorously rubbed what felt like rock salt into all of my skin before coating me in oil. “This”, I thought, “is what it’s like to be a turkey at Christmas or thanksgiving”.

Lessons in the Wim Hof Technique

The next morning, I went for a walk round town and whilst Santa Barbara is just like every other town in California, in the way that there’s a 99 cent store and a CVS, a Target and so on and a Starbuck’s on every 3rd street corner. But on the upside, there are the most fantastic views and the town is arguably amongst the friendliest and welcoming in the entire United States.

After this, I went back to the spa to try a procedure that my wife, Lizzie, had suggested. I was greeted by a big burley man who immediately took off most of his clothes and climbed into the large hot bath with me.

He said I should lie back and live in the moment. But I’m a busy man with an active mind so immediately I started to think about work or how my daughter is getting on with her grandparents. I then thought about where we might go for the rest of their time here in California and then, as he pulled my head under the water with no warning, I thought about Guantanamo. I spluttered to the surface and asked him not to do that again.

I’m sure there are some men who would love to be nearly drowned by a big burley chap in a very hot bath. But I’m not one of them. It’s nothing to do with anything other than I don’t like being nearly drowned.

I got up and promptly joined my wife in the large hot tub.

There we were amongst a lot of women sitting by the Jacuzzi-style water jets, smiling. One I believe read the same page of her book for about an hour. Maybe there was a difficult word she couldn’t figure out how to pronounce or something.

I, meanwhile, chose to go under a jet that shot water onto my shoulders with tremendous force that only protesters in some corners of Europe know what it’s like to be hit by a water canon of this ferocity. However, my shoulders and neck have ached constantly since I last played rugby 8 years ago. And this morning, when I woke up, they didn’t.

So, it’s fair to say that I was touched at this spa, and by the spa itself. It genuinely restored me. This morning when I woke up, I had a renewed vigor as I leapt out of bed, had a shower and headed to the office. And for this, I shall forever be in its debt.

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Our suite looked over the beaches of one of the most stunning beaches in California. The Ritz-Carlton Bacara, Santa Barbara welcomes visitors with five-star amenities, scenic ocean views and easy access to the region’s vineyards, restaurants, shops and attractions. Find inspiration within perfectly framed views of the Pacific from your guest room balcony, relax with a wellness therapy at the spa or get a different perspective on California as you embark on a sailing expedition.

Other resort amenities include:

• 358 guest rooms, suites and rooms offerings including a renowned day spa and fitness center
• Private balconies with ocean views
• Signature steakhouse dining at Angel Oak
• Locally sourced cuisine
• A 12,000-bottle wine collection
• Wine flights in a dedicated tasting room
• More than 70,000 sq ft of event space
• A 42,000-sq-ft spa and wellness center
• Robust activities for guests of all ages
• Two natural beaches

The treatments, meanwhile, are excellent. My massage was a sensory novelty. I went with a closed mind and came back very open and receptive. I went to bed on my first night still a bit skeptical and then woke up after an unprecedented 10 hours straight. I think that says a lot and all of this was without even a whiff of alcohol.