Hotel is a dream, not surprisingly, as it’s one of the Dorchester group, not that Roger has noticed though. He’s lain on the bed watching the 24hr news channel waiting for some update on a tropical storm, hasn’t moved all morning. I ask him what’s so important about a storm, which of course annoys him, says I wouldn’t understand, but then when the news cuts for an advert break, relents. Apparently there is a tropical storm threatening Australia and if it does a lot of damage the bank will make a lot of money as some bright spark has come up with a formula which is all hush-hush what with them being so unpopular and all. Roger says the traders call it the La Nina Prophecy and the formula basically shorts insurance companies and buys commodities whose supply is affected by acts of God, which, according to Roger, ‘is pure (expletive removed) genius’.
Of course, he’s far too busy to accompany me for our ‘A View for Two Massage’, like he was too busy for dinner last night at the John Campbell restaurant. That I didn’t mind – the food was sumptuous, but I was looking forward to our joint massage as it’s performed in a double suite in the new spa building and has amazing views over Coworth’s extensive grounds, they even have a polo field can you believe? I leave Roger chanting Go Yasi! Go Yasi! at the television set and get chauffeured round in a golf cart to the spa.
The Spa has been built to the highest green specification and designed so that it does not intrude into Surrey’s exquisite countryside. It’s amazingly dainty and could easily survive one of Roger’s tropical storms, being partially submerged into a Telly Tubby like grassy mound. The roof even boasts a garden, which they use to grow thyme and lavender and other fragrant herbs which are used in the spa’s treatments. Fortunately the staff realised after two days of suffering Roger that I was a critical case in need of urgent attention and rushed me in for an ‘Insomniacs Dream’. A heavenly full body massage using vertivert, camomile and sandalwood. I only woke up when they started the acupressure point face and scalp massage.
By the time I got back to our gorgeous little suite, having spent most of the afternoon in the Spa’s relaxation room, Roger’s mood had blackened further and he was mumbling something about mother nature being an ungrateful, capricious bitch, the storm I quickly gathered having not hit the most densely populated part of Australia. When I suggested that this was perhaps good news he got even angrier and said I didn’t realise how much money the bank had just lost. Can’t you just borrow more off the Government, like last time, I asked innocently enough, but this merely incensed him further. So I changed the subject and told him all about the Spa’s herb garden and how the Coworth is carbon neutral as not only does it have a biomass boiler it also grows willow to fuel it. But he was not impressed, ‘Global warming,’ he said, ‘you don’t believe in that load of old hot air do you?’ SPA GIRL