Tuesday, May 30, 2006

Mum's Heart Chart


Mum's Heart Chart
Originally uploaded by girl_of_bats.
On Friday morning I went for a massage. I'm lucky that where I live I know a very very good massage therapist with 20 years experience who *just* does stuff like yoga classes, massage, aromatherapy, reflexology and so on. This is infinitely preferable to some girl my age who's done a two-year part-time course in "Beauty Therapy" of which about six weeks was massage, and who is fitting me in for a body massage lasting exactly one hour between her other appointments for the morning which include an ear-piercing, a bikini wax and a manicure.

The experience with Jane is much nicer and goes as follows:
11.25. I arrive, and we have a little chat about how I'm feeling, what oils to use today, music, room temperature and so on. I get undressed and onto the bed, and am tucked up face-down under some towels and a duvet to get properly warm and relaxed while Jane prepares the oils.

Then for about 45 minutes, Jane massages the back half of me, from my feet to my hairline, using her hands and heated stones, and folding warmed towels around me so that only the part of me she is working on is exposed at any given time.

That puts me to sleep, so since Jane always allows lots of time for appointments (she doesn't like to rush herself or her clients) she leaves me to have a little nap for half an hour. I wake up as the CD finishes, and she comes back into the room to help me turn over.

Then she works on my front half, from the feet up again to my shoulders, down my arms, and finishing by using a lighter oil for my face, scalp, ears and neck. Then I'm left to have another little snooze before being woken up with a cup of apple and cranberry tea.

It was about 2.15 by the time I left, and I felt wonderful. I hardly needed to use my stick at all to get back to the flat, and the stairs were easier.

£35 well spent.

After lunch and another rest, Pip came over to help me with a little project - the Heart Chart. We went to B&Q and got some Dulux paint cards to make it with. The colours don't seem to have come out fantastically in this photo. They look better to the naked eye in natural light. Yesterday, when she did her scaring the pants off me thing, she was the second from the top on each column. (that's "Bleached Lichen 3" and "Steel Symphony 2"). Click on the photo to see it in more detail.

I gave it to her in the evening and she laughed and laughed and laughed. :)

2 comments:

jfsouthpaw said...

That's excellent! I couldn't get a bigger version the first time and I thought the word on the left said 'legs'! 'Crikey', I thought, 'I didn't realise people's legs turned like a dark brown colour when they had heart problems!'

Oh, deary me.

That's a very cool chart.

Mary said...

Yeah, the colours really didn't come out well in the photo.

The lips go from blue (not so good) through pale pink (hmmm) to dark pink/reddish colours (better).