The Spa At Norwich Inn

Kim and my 2nd wedding anniversary is coming up soon so we decided to have a little weekend away to celebrate. We went to a hotel just under an hours drive away (convenient!) called the Spa at Norwich Inn. Now this is Nor-Wich in CT not Norrich as the UK pronounces it where I used to live (just to confuse things). No one here seems to know why they say Nor-Wich but Not Green-Wich for Greenwich.

So on Friday once Kim and I were done with work we took the very short drive and checked in.

There was a ‘complimentary’ activity sheet which was quite sweet and kept us occupied.

Luckily we made it just in time for the “wine tasting” AKA drinking wine and eating cheese and grapes, which is just fine by me.

Then we went to check out the spa quickly before dinner, they had a fancy changing room with those electric code locks which no one over the age of 40 seemed to be able to work out.

There was a big vanity area with different products and blow driers etc.

And round the corner they had a big hot tub, steam room and sauna. These were all in the actual changing rooms so they were female/male only, whilst this is convenient for Kim and I, I couldn’t help but think it would be quite inconvenient for all hetero couples.

There was a heated pool, a gym (I didn’t step over the threshold obviously, lest my skin burn), a work out studio and a quiet room with magazines and big comfy chairs in.

Then we had a good dinner and some cocktails.

Now somewhere in the middle of the previous day it had seemed like a good idea to wake up at 6.30am for the ‘complimentary’ morning walk about the grounds.

It seemed like less of a good idea when it was cancelled because it was -7F (-21C) outside and Kim had managed to set fire to the sugar packets accidentally whilst making her coffee.

So in the end we sacked that idea and I took the executive decision to have breakfast at Starbucks, then we made it back in time to do meditation.

Then it all went a bit down hill. The meditation class was packed full and was what Kim would call ‘crunchy hippy’. The woman running it was talking about feeling the “power centres burst forward” and “invite your breaths to come into your lungs”. I started to feel overwhelmingly English and became slightly horrified at “give yourself a hug, thank yourself for being here”…. um… no…. I thought, as I peeked round at about 20 Americans lovingly hugging themselves with their eyes closed. “Take a minute to be inside your own body breathing”…. yeahhh… I’ve been doing just that solidly for about 29 years now, clearly I’m a pro meditator.

After ascertaining that regular meditation sessions are perhaps not for me, we went to get pedicures and Kim got a manicure and spent a gift voucher left over from her birthday (excuse my creepy stubby toes).

Then a spot of lunch and some more spa-ing.

Then we stopped for some afternoon tea which, bless them, they hadn’t got exactly right. The whole hotel had obviously tried to have a bit of an English theme and had called the restaurant the Kensington and the bar area the Ascot (Kim didn’t get it when I asked if we needed to wear a hat). We got very nice scones but they were served with whipped butter and marmalade… hmm… they tried. Also they didn’t have any earl or lady grey tea so I had hot apple cider… still…. why not?

They had a pianist to listen to which was nice.

That night we went for a ‘fancy’ dinner, at the Kensington no less, we got some fancy bread with a selection of fancy butter… fancy.

More cocktails.

And I decided to have some swordfish (which was jolly tasty) because lately I feel as though I am single-handedly diminishing the world’s chicken population. The next day we went to Mohegan Sun, an Indian casino which is literally 5 minutes away from the hotel.

It was pretty big, we only went for a look round because neither Kim or I really enjoy gambling. They’d obviously tried to go with an Indian theme which was nicely done, they even had a robotic wolf that moved it’s head (which is necessary for optimal gambling).

I found some pots in the Indian type shop that were made in the same village ancestry.com said my family is descended from so that was interesting. If all my distant relatives are making these then why am I so shit at art?

Then we mooched around the shops for a bit. The casino had a smoking section and I realised how long it had been since I had been in a building with a smoking and non-smoking section. To make up for this though the casino had strange futuristic toilets that coated the toilet seats with plastic and when you press a button a new layer of protective plastic rotates on! So I played with that for a bit, Americans seem to be deathly afraid that they can catch AIDs or something from a toilet seat and covers pop up everywhere you go out.

And then it was back home to the kitties.

Center Parcs With My Family 3

I meant to post this a few days ago but I’ve been getting over a horrible cold. So back to Center Parcs, the third day my brother and sister treated my mum and I to a pancake house breakfast so we half and halfed a sweet and a savoury pancake.

I added to my squashed penny collection – a vital part of any trip.

And then we went to the massive swim area where we’d been going each day… and that’s where the problems started. We were sat in one of the pool areas with jets and we’d seen this family about on previous days always sort of causing issues but nothing serious like sitting in the middle of one of the water slides for ages and that kind of thing. Anyway so this one guy from this odd family started staring at me and my mum,  not in a flattering way in a really creepy almost angry way and we were just sitting chatting as a family. So after a while he asked me do you have a problem to which I said uhh… yeaaah you keep staring at me and it’s weird so please stop. I have eyes that look where they want to look he shouted…aaand then things escalated and he was shouting at all of us and security had to get involved and then his family were shouting. Anyways… he picked on the wrong family because my family are not the quiet type who let things go. They gave us free coffee and took our statements about what happened and said they’d get back to us so we swam some more.

Then we went to a coffee tasting which was really good actually and we learned more about different coffees and different places they come from.

We got a keep cup and to pick a bag of coffee.

I liked the blonde mix best, Charles liked the strongest coffee of course.

So then after our tasting we spied the dodgy family again and we were thinking oh jeez what next, we were planning on going swimming again in the afternoon so we rang to find out what happened, long story short we got a free spa afternoon with tea and cake and the dodgy family got kicked out of Center Parcs the next day because it turned out they’d already been in a fist fight with another family over a rubber ring! So dodgy family if you’re out there… thanks for the free spa I guess? It would have cost us almost £200!

Boxing Day At Foxwoods Casino

Just look at it… so majestic.

If Santa is reading, I want crystal stuff to play with every year. I got lots of really great gifts this year, Kimmy outdid herself and got both of us DNA tests from ancestry.com to find our racial history so we’ve sent that off and that should be fun. Also I have this thing where I feel a bit sorry for lobsters because they get boiled alive and scream and so I don’t ever want to eat them, and I feel sad to see them cooped up in those tanks so Kim adopted two lobsters for me because I’m a bit mad. I got a ton of other fun stuff too as you can see.

Americans don’t really have a Boxing Day like we do in England so everything is still open. We got bagels for breakfast at Rein’s Deli, it’s a Jewish business and let me tell you they had some really cool food there. I don’t know many Jewish people because in England only 0.5% of people are Jewish (apparently), but if this is how they eat then when I emigrate I’m going recruiting for a Jewish food buddy.

After that we drove to Foxwood’s Casino, in America they have Indian Reservations which is land that Native Americans own, they often pay less tax and the laws on gambling can differ, making them a great place to have a casino. The one we went to had a spa so Kim, and our mums went to that whilst her Dad did some light gambling on the slot machines where he won enough for our dinner!

So that was good.

And then it was time for bingo, American style where we won a big fat nothing… the curse prevails.

Bingo is a lot more complicated in the USA, the sheets are larger and you need to find different patterns on the sheets instead of lines such as a wild crazy pyramid… whatever that is! So no big wins but still a good day.

 

Spa & The Stoat Weasel

During our stay at Center Parcs we frequently saw this one peacock, in fact he could have been stalking us. And like all the Center Parcs animals he had no fear of humans at all and you could get very close to him.

 

One of the days of our stay we went to the spa at Center Parcs which was lovely, we got sorted in the changing rooms where they had these odd lockers where you had to press a wristband on them but they had no numbers on them.

Anyways, the spa was set out in a ring around a big spa pool in the middle and around the ring were small rooms leading into saunas, steam rooms, scented rooms etc. I personally have never enjoyed a sauna, if the air inside my lungs is hot and I get the foreboding sense of death sitting there for a minute then I count the experience as non-enjoyable. I do the like cedar wood smell though.

I liked the zen garden because there was a little stoat (or weasel, Kim and I couldn’t work out the difference) that kept dashing about. The stoat weasel was storing food I think because he carried something in his mouth. But I got to read a magazine on a comfy sofa in a dressing gown which is a win in my books. Also I remembered why I don’t buy magazines when every other page was an advert… Also a win.

There was an ice chip fountain which you were encouraged by a sign to rub over yourself after leaving the sauna to feel invigorated, I decided to pass on this offer but helped throw ice at Kim (I’m nice like that). She did not feel invigorated.

After the spa relaxation we went for a very healthy lunch of burger and chips with large milkshakes.

May Days

Happy Sunday readers, I am currently living in mad visa hell and haven’t been up to a whole bunch. It was little Barclay heart head’s 8th birthday. As he gets older I have been investigating cloning options for him and thinking of starting a go fund me page to raise the thousands. I’m holding out he’ll live well into his 20s.

Some work mates and I had a bingo outing a couple weeks ago, and as is my usual bingo style I cursed us all and no one won anything. Obviously.

But I did enjoy some very reasonably priced carrot cake… so that’s a bonus.

My boss had a big party last week for her 50th which was good fun although I think lots of my colleagues felt like this afterwards…

Tasha and I needed a big breakfast the next day.

And then a couple days ago a few uni friends and I went to the spa at Dunston Hall (A stately looking manor place turned hotel) because I found a Groupon voucher (I love a bargain) so that was very nice and we had some lunch together after our fingers had turned pruney.

Kim has sent off the USA visa (we gave up on the expensive UK one as we would have to move to the USA eventually because of Kim’s mammoth student loan) so that will take a long old time. I’m thinking of switching from my lovely permanent job (sob) to a temping agency style job so I can visit a lot whilst we wait. We shall see…

Day Off Errands

I had a day off yesterday so I decided to take a trip into the city, I got a Groupon voucher for a pedicure at Le-La Beautique. I love browsing my Groupon App but I haven’t actually bought anything on there before. It was so easy to do. I got gold to match little goldie my car. Please excuse my stubby baby toes.

I have really ticklish feet but luckily the beautician was a pro at not tickling, also this weekend she might be doing Snoop Dogg’s nails (did you know he wore false nails??). I also took a trip to Aleks the Jewellers, they put a new stone in an old ring I had a while back and cleaned it up lovely. I recently acquired 3 rings that were my grandmothers and have been meaning to take them in.

As you can see this one needs a good clean up and a bit of a reshape!

    

Hopefully when I collect it it’ll look good as new and I can wear it. Today I worked a half day (lushhh) and took goldie to get cleaned, I would do it myself but I don’t have a driveway or a hose so… Just pay someone else, also the nice men at Sainsburys fixed my back windscreen wiper where it had seized up (although it took 3 of them to do it!) how sweet is that? I do love Sainsburys and ours is HUGE. It may cost a little more sometimes but it isn’t a lot more, it’s near my house and I’ve noticed there are a lot less screaming children in the aisles which can only be a good thing.

Visiting Bath

Kim’s down visiting and we took a trip to Bath with my Mum and Sister Bronte, we started out with a bus tour which was actually pretty good and I got student discount.

And we saw fudge getting made the old fashioned was which was interesting and it tasted absolutely amazing so we bought a slab for my Mum to say thanks for having us to stay because she loves fudge.

Then we had a little look around the old Roman Baths, the water smells so gross.

Then we went to the Thermae Bath Spa

I had to steal that photo because I obviously did not take my phone into the spa.. It was just like that only dark and blue lights in the water were on. It’s on different floors, the bottom floor has a big warm pool in it with floaty things in, there’s changing rooms and showers, a restaurant, 4 big steam rooms with scents in like lavender and then the roof top pool. You got given robes and slippers only once your robes were wet you kinda didn’t want to put them back on again… so we kept pinching other peoples – we were the worst guests there I’m sure.

Last day – New York

So I flew back from New York and that meant a long old drive back to JFK to park up, not long because of distance but long because of the insane traffic. It was just gridlock almost the entire way. It was Kim’s birthday too so to say sorry for making her drive to JFK and back and to wish her a happy birthday we went to a spa in New York called Aire Baths. It was all fancyyy. We walked in and got special wristbands that unlocked out lockers where we had a robe and slippers and a towel. There was this attendant there that was hovering over us trying to be helpful (which she was) but it was like having a servant, she even insisted that she squeeze out our swimsuits after and put them in little ziplock bags for us.

I had to steal this photo of the baths cuz I didn’t take my phone in there. There were all different pools, a tepid one, a hot one, two freezing cold ones, a jacuzzi one and a salt water one where you floated. There was also showers and a really big steam room, a warmed marble seating area and curtained areas for massages, candles were absolutely everywhere. We each had a massage, mine was really good and relaxing.

You got two hours in the spa which was just the right time and then we got out and got showered and dressed. All the showers had shampoo and conditioner etc and there were mirrored areas with make up wipes and hair dryers and straighteners. There were even hair brushes you could borrow (um… no.. ) and a swimsuit drainer machine with purple ziplock bags.

So that was really cool, we both left smelling gorgeous and we walked a little way to the Crosby Bar where we had booked afternoon tea. I hadn’t realised other countries never did afternoon tea, the whole bar was English themed.

They had lovely Wedgwood china, Kim got flowering tea and I got Earl Grey.

And we had nice pink tiered plates. It was a lot less formal than afternoon tea at the Goring in London.

But it was still fancy, even the bathrooms looked fancy. Sorry America… rest rooms… they even had a little chair should you wish to rest (ugh… why do they call it this?).

Then we decided to go to ground zero and see the 9/11 monument… which wasn’t really that interesting. If you wanted to read any information or do anything other than look at the fountain you had to pay to go in the museum. There weren’t even many places to sit there so we were only there 5 minutes.

Then I had a lovely long delay on the plane for 4 hours before an overnight flight with a screaming baby… oh joy.