Serenity

The antonym of Uproar is Tranquility.

Coming from a place of uproar, I arrive into the Tranquility Spa at Whites Hotel and am given a warm welcome by the delicious and beautiful Susan Passfield.

Pausing only momentarily to check-in to FB on the stairs, I draw my ragged breath scoping out a few of the random sporty men who are leaving with their freshly showered heads.

 I am wearing my only casual gear.

 A green hoodie, black track suit bottoms and Mini Slippertons.  I have taken the liberty of donning my sisters  bathing suit in the privacy of my own kitchen, which apart from a minor incident of almost toppling naked onto a super-ser was uneventful.

Susan gets me to register and fill in my name, email, and any or all of a multitude of life threatening conditions that I may or may not suffer from. I scribble quickly as I am most anxious to be enveloped by the water. Not since Hippocrates first prescribed bathing in spring water for medical conditions has a person been so anxious to get wet. The experience at Tranquility Spa begins from the moment you push open the door. It is quiet. It is lushly carpeted. It is lit with pillar candles.

A team of professional people greet you at the desk. There are beautiful things to buy -gift wrapped in cellophane and curled ribbons. People are gliding silently around in belted robes and slippers like a procession of devotees. I am beside myself to join their number.

In the changing rooms I am unrecognizable from the wide-eyed ingénue in Kellys Resort.   Here I have to man up and look after my own locker and I tear the clothes off myself and don the robe and slippers and wonder where on my person I can keep the rubber band with the key on. It is too big on my childsize wrist, and probably too small for my  dowagersized cankle.  I do NOT want to resemble some spanner in the water but am unaware of poolside etiquette. In the end, I put it in my pocket. Who knew?

One has to sit in an armchair and ring the bell to be escorted into the Thermal Suite. The seconds were like hours. One has also been aware for the last 20 minutes or so of a vague humming of distant machinery. Ones  feet  also don’t reach the ground and I sit swinging them while looking hopefully at the door like a dog waiting to be walked.  There is a sense of tension building. Finally, (about 3 mins actually) the lady comes to lead me in.

The Noise, the WATER, the NOISE.

I don’t know which I love more.

One is assaulted instantly when the door opens by a positive wall of heat and steam. You’ve been hearing the water for a long time. You’ve been hearing it forever if truth be told. But when you are inside and you can hear and see it then you just might want to jump up and down a little bit. My guide is talking and explaining but I am gone. I have morphed into Homer Simpson and in my head a monkey is playing cymbals.  All I want is to be walking down the steps.  I take in nothing of her explanations of saunas, showers, plunge pools etc. She tells me to enjoy and I am walking down the steps into the warm pool.

The Thermal Suite is what Heston Blumenthal would do with water should he be “trippin’.”

The roaring is like white noise. It is a combination of the machinery and the thunderous spray of the water both from overhead and below. It makes everything recede. I am lost in a world of myself and the  water and the delicious anticipation of what does what , where and for how long.

May I mention it was also lovely at this juncture to come to the realization that I would not in fact drown.   As I am miniscule in stature, if not in girth, it would always be an issue how deep this thing would get.  It was fine.  Well let’s just say I would be averse to sharing this space with too many others as heaven forfend  I should be knocked off balance. The water itself has the power to literally knock you over if you do not brace.

I am lost in the aqua marine. I am buffeted, tickled, sprayed, massaged and melted. Under the massive flume in the very centre -  as what looks like a giant metallic chamber empties endlessly - I laugh out loud like a small child as the spraying foam around me changes colours -  from white to midnight blue, Seville orange, lime green, shocking pink as it is lit from underneath. It makes me want to clap my hands and do a little dance.

The machinery is on a timer. It’s not The Cube but it takes a little time to suss it out. Despite my best attempts every time I hauled myself onto the vibrating underwater massage beds and laid my neck on the leather pillow it turned off. This was primarily because I was loving the neck massage jet too much. In conversation with a man who was looking at the brochure online it transpired that it was in fact a lower back massage jet so for once my height played a blinder.

I lie floating on the current of air and the gush of water. My ears are submerged and the roaring of the machinery and the water fills me. I am in the water, lying under it and floating over it simultaneously. I am braced by the tips of my wrinkled fingertips on the lip of the pool. The noise is like the impossible frenetic roar of a plane as its wheels finally leave the ground, like the sound of a ships engine turning, like a washing machine on max spin. I am lost and alone in this roaring silence. I am spent. I am saved. I am rescued. I surrender.

I am in love with this water.  

I AM this water.

I decide to check out the showers and saunas to delay my return to the pool. The blind man from Howth knows I am getting back in here in a minute.  If not sooner.   If the Neath rugby squad arrives in here I am getting back in. The showers are a revelation. An enclosed mosaic wall turns in on itself like a shell and I am inside. There are buttons on the wall.  Tropical or Fresh?  It’s a no-brainer.  First the walls glow pink and then a fine mist scented with frangiapani, orchids and coconut coats your skin. Then tiny stars light up the ceiling and then you are doused in cold water smack in the face as you glance up.  Oh, how I laughed.

At the saunas and lyconium I was like Goldilocks. One was too hot, one was too cold, and one was just right. (They were ALL amazing actually, but I was racing around as the clock was ticking and I was compelled to return to the water for one last session)

In the water the pains and aches I hold are absent. The stiffness and dull throbbing are but a distant memory. I can MOVE. I am agile, and supple. I am Ethel Merman (I have visions of attaching flowers to a swim cap and singing show tunes in a strident manner )

I am leaving the water, and walking up the seven steps to land as if I was Bo Derek sans beads. My hair resembles Patti Smith post hedge and dragging whilst backwards. By the third step, I am conscious of the weightlessness leaving me as the water drags away from me. I am as heavy as someone who has just taken off anti-gravity boots. I weigh 40 stone.

I feel          a/  I have just run a marathon                                                              

                   b/ I have just had a major workout

                   c/ Fabulous.

They take me to a reclining leather armchair with remote controls, a cushion, a soft fleece throw  and a stack of glossy magazines in a candle lit room to “recover” . I am brought a tray with coffee, biscuits, fresh fruit salad and fresh orange juice by the delicious Susan again. I do not want to leave this place.  Ever.

For years this beautiful space has been around the corner from my house. I have quaffed  hundreds of coffees and cake in its foyer, ordered numerous  Caesar salads in its  Library Bar, stayed in its guest bedrooms, and attended expo’s and weddings in its function rooms  too numerous to mention. And yet I had never darkened the door of The Tranquility Spa. I intend to rectify this situation immediately and forthwith. It is an amazing TREATment.  You can check out their page on facebook . Mention my name by all means  but please, I beg of you,  do not be in the water at the same time.

Tranquility Recovery                                                         Michelle Dooley Mahon – Dec. 23^rd 2012.