Aaaaaaaah. First holiday in years, off to the domed one of Norfolk (although that could describe most of the inhabitants too).
After a leisurely train from the Cricklewood smog (goodbye Somerfield and it’s pesky croquettes) up to St. Albans to get my lift up to the park in the centre of the world (which is how I wish they’d advertise it, thought they’d find it tricky to explain the fact they have four of them.
We all arrived to find that not only is the dome actually just covering the swimming pool and not encasing the entire complex like some mini biosphere, or one of the spaceships in Capricorn One, but that it was blisteringly hot weather.
Everyone went straight to the bike rental place. Like Oxford, China and the moon, Centreparc’s main form of transport is the humble bicycle. This was one of my fears (and almost the reason I didn’t go) as humiliatingly I can’t ride a bike.
Feel free to carry on reading once you’ve stopped laughing…
I don’t know why, I just never learnt, and now I am too old and self conscious to be laughed at by children.
To my sheer delight (and this is one of the reasons why I love her, email me for the full list ) Lis also is unable to ride a bike. We could walk round together like cripples (not ones in wheelchairs, obviously, that would be sick)
Myself and Lis had treated ourselves to a self-applied mudbath, we had no idea what this really meant, but it seemed like fun. Off to the spa we went.
We were both led into separate very posh changing rooms and given towels and robes for no charge. We were unsure whether we were supposed to be naked or have pants so we both adopted for pants, to save possible embarrassment.
Our guide for the evening was an overly fit man with blonde hair, probably called Brad. He led us into the special room and explained all. We would both get naked in the small private steam room. We would then be steamed for fifteen minutes (I felt a glow of pride, carrots only take five minutes, we are better than vegetables. Though carrots also cannot ride bikes, this brings us down a notch), then we were to apply the tubs of mud to each other. This felt like a porn, always a good feeling. When ready we pressed a button and had another fifteen minutes of steam (ahaha, a carrot would be dead by then) and then we could shower it all away.
They provided paper pants if we desired. I desired, but not for modesty reasons, I just reckon paper pants would be cool.
Brad left us and we got into the glass room. After about two minutes of wondering if it was steamy or just hot we remembered to press the button. The steam slowly began pumping through the ceiling, like poisonous gas in a Bond film (as far as I can see this is the only reason Bond chooses the Caribbean over Centreparcs).
After about ten minutes it was getting pretty unbearable, I felt like a shit carrot. Then (presumably exactly five minutes later) the steam stopped. We looked at each other, two sweaty naked people in a glass room. A bit like Darryl Hannah and Tom Hanks in Splash (though I look nothing like Darryl Hannah – hahaha).
Time for the mud.
Two different types, one for sensitive areas (stop giggling) and the other for everything else. I wondered how many people had been naked in this room, reckoning that they would fall into one of three categories;
1) Slightly embarrassed/Seriously applying the mud
2) Porn movie like
3) Mud fighters
I am proud to say we are both number threes. Slinging mud at my hot sweaty girlfriend was probably the highlight of the year so far.
When we finally calmed down (and ran out of mud, Lis wouldn’t let me wander into the reception naked except for mud to ask for more) we applied the steam again. This time it just started to hurt.
When the fifteen minutes of sweat and dehydration were up we showered the mud away and donned our robes. Then it was off to the leisure room with water, ambient music and a massage chair, which pummeled all of the relaxation out of me.
Aaaah.