In many ways, a health farm is a strange choice for a luxury weekend away. Why restrict yourself to calorie-counted food and exercise when you could be eating big, rich meals, getting drunk, having a laugh and lolling around - in my experience, a far more successful method of relaxation?
Mind you, things appeared a little too relaxed when we arrived at Champneys, Britain's original health farm, having been founded in 1925 by a Latvian naturopath called Stanley Lief, and set in a magnificent manor house in the Chiltern Hills between Berkhamstead and Tring. Everyone was wandering round in towelling robes. Robes! With nothing underneath! In public! At mealtimes! You won't catch us doing that, we muttered. What a bunch of Hugh Hefners. How disturbing. How institution-like. In short, how... weird.
Which just goes to show the lure of institutions, because within a few hours we, too, were padding about in our very own slippers and robes, having decided that they really made you feel quite free and were actually rather democratising - everyone looks the same in a Champneys's robe!
Soon, we were sharing cheery waves with similarly-robed strangers, and chat ting about "my Thalgo" and "my heat treatment", and "the spirit of Champneys". However did that happen? My friend kept muttering darkly about the Thomas Mann novel, The Magic Mountain, which is set in a pre-war sanatorium in the Alps and where the inmates are seduced into losing all free will. So, we can't say we weren't warned. Even so, we gave in all the same.
The most fascinating aspect of our two nights in the Hertfordshire countryside was the food. All meals are included, and you'd better eat them, because you can buy nothing extra to snack on: there's no Coke dispenser, no minibar, no chocolate for at least three miles. There is a bowl of fruit in your room, but it is accompanied by a dire warning to the poor saps on the "Light Diet" programme (for weight loss) - they're not even allowed more than one apple a day.
The nurse who gave me a check-up told me that on the "main menu" (health, not weight loss, being the objective) you won't eat more than 1,500 calories a day. This seemed astounding when I saw what was on offer - fruit, cereal, egg, mushrooms, muffins, for breakfast; salad buffet and chilli for lunch; three-course dinner with swanky vertical layers and things like jus . How could this possibly add up to only 1,500 calories? And then we noticed - brains of Britain - that the "bread rolls" were in fact the size of the holes in doughnuts, and that even though you were free to eat as many as you like, you felt greedy having more than two. And we also realised that nothing was cooked in oil; the breakfast muffins were fat-free and constituted one mouthful.
Rather more obviously, at lunchtime the plates were adorned, not with a flower design, or willowpattern, but with markings proclaiming "protein" (one-third), "complex carbohydrate" (one-third) and "fruit and vegetables" (the other third). Which I found a little too bossy for my liking.
Nevertheless, the food was pretty fantastic under those constraints; but there was something about the place that just made us want to buck the system. So we risked disapproving looks by ordering potatoes (three tiny chunks of boiled spuds), and then, horror of horrors, spent a small fortune on wine; that is, when it was available (dinner only). Disappointingly, there was no bar to retire to.
In between eating, there was a surprisingly wide range of things to do. One particularly energetic morning, we played squash and table tennis, went for a swim, tested the indoor Jacuzzi, sat in the outdoor hot tub (we were steaming), and had the heat treatment and massage that is included for every single day of your stay. All before about 3pm. Pretty fabulous.
After that, we wafted about in those robes. I had a facial, which involved being blasted with oxygen from a blowtorch, and my friend had a Thalgo Men-Only Treatment, which involved being covered in seaweed and rubbed about a bit. Then we went for a walk in the grounds, wandering past the tennis courts, the croquet lawns and one of those giant chess games where the pieces are the size of small people. The lack of a bar did prove a bit of a hindrance to the kind of evenings we're used to, but the wine with dinner and the rather fantastic games room meant we could while away the time playing backgammon and snooker. And that was all in one day!
The next morning, we decided on fewer exertions. I took much longer over my complimentary massage, arriving early for a heat treatment - sitting in a steamy box with your head sticking out, slightly eerie and torture-like - and then being wrapped in towels and blankets and placed in a darkened room. Only then did I get my massage, but it was worth the wait.
After this, I went to the arts-and-crafts room. I know, it's a strange idea; and, of course, I had scoffed heartily when the concept had been mentioned on our arrival. But it was a lovely room, bright and airy, with paints and charcoals and pastels. I hadn't fiddled around with that stuff since I was at school. I painted some crocuses, and wandered over to a fantastic place called the music room, which played out some well-chosen classical while you sat silently in comfy chairs. The sun streamed in, and people in robes fell asleep. I loved this room, although there was an alarming moment when I imagined I'd aged 50 years and was in an upmarket nursing home. Then I fell asleep, too.
There were a few surprises. The staff were terrific; especially a character called Bryan: "There are only two rules at Champneys. First: there are no rules. Second: wear slippers at all times," he declared. And the fact that you didn't have to lug anything around - there were stacks of towels permanently on hand - helped make the environment particularly relaxing. We felt exceptionally well after our activity-filled, fibre-enhanced weekend, and much less obsessive about Fruit & Nut than we thought we'd be.
Or at least I thought we did. On arrival at Euston station, while discussing how our bodies were temples and we were high on health, we stumbled across a Thorntons kiosk on the concourse. Of course, we bought some. We still had some free will, you know.
Way to go
Weekend packages at Champneys, Wigginton, Tring, Herts HP23 6HY (01442 291111) cost from £400pp.
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