Brief Trip to Birmingham

A little while ago I joined someone's PhD research, which is about weight stigma in social work basically, so I was happy to join their steering group. I love the opportunity to be fat professionally and to use my experiences of living in a fat body to help shape research and things. We had met online but thenn Laurel, the researcher, wanted the steering group to meet up so they had organised for us all to go to Birmingham. That's not a bad drive for me, so I went by myself. I set off about 11 on the Monday morning I guess, and stopped for lunch at one of the services on the way. I had pre booked parking near the hotel and had to go round a bit to get into it, but I managed eventually. I just had a small case with me but with my coat and bag and everything I had to struggle upstairs as there wasn't a lift in the car park. 

My maps app then sent me totally the wrong way and I had to walk round a bit even though I was so close to the hotel! I did see this pub with Black Sabbath photos on it, which was pretty cool. Even if it was in the wrong direction from where I needed to be... 

I eventually made it, and met Laurel. It turns out we have friends in common so that was cool. A few people arrived then from Brighton, who already knew Laurel and who I had met online, so that was cool too. We each checked in and got our key cards, and then said goodbye for a bit as we were meeting later for tea. 

My room was fine - on the 6th floor and the bed was nice and soft. I had a few hours so I laid down for a rest as I hadn't been sleeping well. I had the TV on and got nice and cosy in the bed. I had brought my book and thought I had about a chapter left, but it turned out there were only a couple of pages. No matter, I had another one with me, of course!

There were ten of us who met downstairs just after 7; including some people I hadn't met earlier, so it was nice to meet some new people. We walked to Nando's as it's accessible and has food for everyone, and it wasn't too far to walk for me. I had the halloumi burger and it was fine! Afterwards we were kind of talking about doing something else, like finding dessert, but generally people were tired so we ended up dispersing and I went back to my room and had a cup of coffee and some chocolate there instead. 

In the morning I was up and at breakfast by about 8.15. I met Laurel and some others there. I wasn't very hungry so I just had some cheese and pastries, they were nice though. Everyone eventually ended up there; Laurel went off to set up the meeting for us, and the rest of us ate and got ready. At 9.30 taxis came and got most of us as the meeting was too far for some of us to walk.

It was in the Friends of the Earth building so there were tons of radical posters around which I really liked. We had our meeting from 10 until 1, and we got a lot sorted. I feel really positive about it! We said goodbye to each other and I and some others went back to the hotel to get our cases which they had kindly kept for us. This time I got back to the car park much easier thankfully, and was soon on my way home. I stopped to grab some lunch and a coffee and got home about 4pm, back to Lee and the cats! 

Black Sabbath photos on the pub. I think there were similar on a bridge nearby and if I had thought about it I would have gone to look on my gap between checking in and meeting for tea, but it didn't occur to me until later

Close ups

The hotel room. I had a quick shower too before I went out for tea, because I was very sweaty and felt gross!

View from my hotel room

I saw this on a building we passed in the taxi on the way to the meeting

And some of the radical posters in the meeting venue

Night Away at Thorpe Park Hotel

For my birthday in January Sam, Jacqui and Jodie bought me a spabreaks.com voucher, which was a great present as I love going to a spa. I decided to leave it until after we had moved house, and then I booked myself a night at Thorpe Park Hotel near Leeds. I went once for a meal for a friend's hen party back in 2012, but I had never been to the spa or stayed over. A lot of people rave about it, so I was looking forward to trying it. I booked a night with a food allowance, plus access to the spa, by myself. Lee wanted me to take him but no, I wanted to be by myself! 

I had high expectations and sadly the hotel didn't meet them. There were a few reasons why. I was in touch with them before my arrival and was told my spa access was only from 3pm when it was check in, which was a bit disappointing because I would have liked to go earlier for a longer time. I ordered some chocolates for myself for the room in the emails, too. I set off about 2.15pm after I'd had brunch with Lee and Sam, and got there about 3pm. 

There was the first problem - there were tons of people checking in at that time and the queue was really long and there was one member of staff. I had to stand in a queue for ages, which is very painful for me. I finally got up to the room at about 3.25. This of course cut into my spa time even more, which was annoying. 

The room was lovely - the bathroom had a lovely shower and lovely products in it, and the room had a huge bed and a sofa area. The wardrobes had a dressing gown and a sleep kit in which were both nice touches. There was a fridge and a coffee machine and a kettle for tea. I couldn't work the coffee machine which was annoying, but they did have decaf coffee. But they didn't have my chocolates! So I phoned down for them and someone brought them straight away which was good, but I was a bit annoyed that they weren't there when I checked in.

I put my swimming costume on and went down to the spa in the dressing gown (which was nice and big!) about 3.35 and went in. There's a pool which isn't huge but is nice and warm, and it's big enough to swim in. At one edge there's a big quiet room, which looked lovely but I didn't go in it. At another edge there is a sauna and a steam room and a shower. On the third edge is another relaxation area and a hot tub. The hot tub is quite big but I didn't feel it was big enough for the number of people in the spa. There were people in the hotel in there of course, but it's also a place you can belong to to use, so there were a lot of people around even for a Sunday evening. It took me a while to actually get into the hot tub because it was so busy. 

I swapped between the pool, the hot tub, and the steam room, and it was nice. I sat and read my book for a bit too. But it maybe wasn't the amazingly relaxed time I had envisioned. There was a bit of a fracas between a man and a woman and her children. They didn't know each other and I'm not entirely sure what the man thought the woman and her children were doing but he was quite rude to her, it was weird. 

I got out of the spa at about 6.30 and went back up to my room. I couldn't work the TV which was annoying - it turned out there were two remote controls - so I had a shower before I went down to the restaurant. I had booked my table for 7.30 so got down just before then. I knew I would be sitting by myself and it was fine - I had gone prepared with my book. The restaurant is nice but the service was sloooow. I had French onion soup and halloumi curry which was bizarre, I should have gone for something else. Alongside I had a lovely glass of red wine. I might have ordered some pudding but no one came to ask me, and I got fed up, so I just excused myself to the staff and went back up to my room. I had some biscuits in there anyway. But again, it's just something else I was bothered by. 

I got the TV working and watched some rubbish TV while I got into bed and relaxed. I ended up going to sleep really late because I was finishing my book! 

In the morning I got up and got packed up and everything and headed down to breakfast at about 9.30 I think. I wasn't that impressed with the breakfast. It was a buffet and there wasn't a lot of veggie options and there were no pastries left. There was also no decaf coffee which is extremely annoying in such a hotel! I ordered some veggie sausages which took ages to come, and I got some bits from the buffet and took a seat. Someone brought some more pastries out so I grabbed a couple. It was fine, but again just not as good as I was expecting.

I went and packed all my things up and checked out early because I wanted to go to craft club for the last hour or something, so I left about 10am even though check out wasn't until eleven. I then ran into the final problem. As I said, I had a meal allowance of £30 included in the booking I had made, and I had spent about that, plus my glass of wine, so I knew I had to pay for the wine. However the girl on reception said the bill was about £40 and I was just like ....nope. I pulled up my email and she did try to argue with me about it. But I paid for the wine and left!

I really think that as it's a four star hotel it should just be better than it is! The service just wasn't what I would expect! But hey, I did have a good time and enjoyed my little trip by myself. 

In a rose print dress on my way out to the hotel

My room which was really lovely and well equipped

There were lots of nice touches to the room

The pool in the spa, I didn't take many photos because there were a lot of people and kids around

The chocolates when I finally got them

French onion soup, it was delicious 

The curry wasn't quite as good, though. It was very sweet

But I did enjoy the glass of decent red!

Spa and Stay near Skipton

For my birthday in January Lee bought me an overnight stay at Coniston Hotel near Skipton, including breakfast and spa access for us both. He had booked it for the beginning of April which was fine by me. It was the first day off Lee had had since Christmas, except for the Easter bank holidays, and he had been working so hard so he really needed it. So we were both really looking forward to it!

We left our house just after 10am and drove to Scrap in Leeds first of all. I've heard of it loads as a lot of my friends have been, but I've never been myself. It's all repurposed art and craft supplies and I really wanted to go and I ended up loving it and I'll definitely go again! I spent eighteen pounds which wasn't bad at all. There's lots of bits I would have liked to pick up but I did restrain myself a little! Apparently there are other shops and restaurants in the same complex but we didn't see them as we wanted to get to Skipton. So we just set off.

We got there about 1pm and parked the car, and then went into a cafe to get some lunch. In fact it was the second cafe we tried because the first was incredibly rude, but there we are. Lee had a jacket potato and I had Greek salad, and we both had delicious hot chocolate with cream and a flake. Then we went into a few shops - I bought some books in charity shops, like I do - and looked at the market, where we bought a fitted sheet and a Johnny Cash t shirt that we will probably end up sharing. We went into the little shopping arcade where we went last time we went to Skipton (in summer 2022, I think) and looked in the shops there, and then went into The Cake'Ole for coffee and cake. Lee had a ridiculous Oreo milkshake and I had a coffee and we shared a piece of chocolate cake. 

By this time it was getting on towards 3pm which is what time we could check in so we drove up to the hotel. We checked in and had to walk miles to our room, but it was a suite so it was really nice. It had a balcony which was also lovely. We had a spa booking at 3.30 though so we got changed into our swimming stuff and walked up to the spa at about 3.40. 

It is an absolutely beautiful spa and I would definitely go again just for that. There's a lovely pool inside, three different saunas, a steam room, a jacuzzi, a bar, and outside there are two infinity pools with bubbles too. We headed out there and the water was so warm! It wasn't a warm day really but there was a nice breeze which kept us from overheating in the pool. We got some drinks from the bar and sipped them while in the pool which felt so fancy and decadent! 

We did move around and I tried two of the saunas and the steam room. The jacuzzi inside was really hot so we didn't spend long in there. We left around 5.40pm, as we got two hours in our booking. 

We went back to the room where I had a bath! I never have a bath because ours is tiny, but this one was big enough for me. If I had known there would be a bath I would have taken a bath bomb, but I didn't really think about it. But I used some of the stuff the hotel provided, which was lovely. Then I got in the shower to wash my hair, and finally I got ready. Lee had a shower after me. 

We headed down to the dining room for 7.15. I was wearing my red leopard print dress from Yours, which is nice but not too fancy. The restaurant does feel really upmarket but not everyone was dressed up so it was fine. I had already checked the menu to make sure there was stuff we would both eat, because if not we would have gone elsewhere. But there were a few vegetarian options. In fact I think mine were both vegan. I had mushrooms on toast, which were delicious, and Lee had mushroom soup which was really good too. Then he had a margherita pizza and I had roasted cauliflower with spring vegetables and a herb puree, and fries. It was nice food, a bit fancy but delicious. 

After we had eaten we went into the bar for another drink. We went back to the room at about 9pm and watched some TV before bed. I've been having problems sleeping so wanted to get a good night; I've had some Nytol and it has helped. The bed was huge and very comfy. 

We got up early, at 8am, because we had breakfast included and then we had another visit to the spa, so we had to eat before that! There were a few choices from the hot menu, so Lee went for eggs florentine and I had a vegetarian breakfast. There was a buffet too, so Lee had some coco pops and I had a pain au chocolat which was lovely. We had plenty of decaf coffee, too. 

We went back to the room, got changed quickly, and headed back to the spa for about 9am. It was much emptier than it had been on the Friday, so it was really lovely! We swam for a bit first, then I tried the other sauna and then we went outside again. It was so, so lovely and relaxing. We left at 11am and we had been given a late check out which was great, so we went back to the room where I had a quick shower and got dressed before we checked out. That meant I didn't have to worry for the rest of the day! We got home about 1pm. It was a lovely present and so nice for us to spend some time together.

Here's like a zillion photos... sorry!

Outside Scrap. It's upstairs in a mill but there is a lift. Chloe and I will have to go one time, she loves it

Look at all the stuff to be discovered! They do refills of soap/conditioner/etc too, and they have little kits of craft things which would be really nice gifts

I was tempted to buy some rolls of film to use in journals but I didn't

Here's Lee in Coffee and Clay 

And my ridiculous hot chocolate

Here's me. I don't love this photo but there we go

Here's my salad which was delicious

This was the fridge in The Cake'Ole, isn't it cute?

Here's the cake we shared

And Lee with his milkshake

This was the view from our hotel balcony!

And our bathroom, it was huge

Here's one of the outside pool, isn't it lovely? I tried to avoid taking photos of strangers, hence the slightly weird cropping here. The other was just off to the other side

Looking from the spa towards the hotel 

Here I am in the infinity pool with our drinks. Proper fancy bitch life!

This is the outside of the spa as we were walking back to the hotel

The pornstar martini I had with my tea

Mushrooms on toast 

Roasted cauliflower

These are the books I bought

And here's what I bought in Scrap

Red leopard print dress and grey footless Snag tights

The view from the balcony when it got dark

The view from the restaurant in the morning while we were eating breakfast - it was beautiful and it would be lovely to sit on the terrace in the summer

My breakfast - it was really nice

And a delicious pain au chocolat

Looking outside at the terrace while we were sitting by the pool

Me in the infra red sauna. My costume was from Crazy Clearance recently and it's actually a blouson tankini top and some ruched bottoms. It's really nice. I know you can't see it fully but that's the info on it anyway

This was just before we got out of the spa, we had this pool to ourselves at this point

Look at the beautiful terrace. It was less sunny on this morning but still not too cold

This was the jacuzzi inside, I cropped this oddly so I didn't take photos of people in the sauna here

Lee took this

And he took this of the pool - it was so much quieter on the Saturday morning

Finally, looking back at the hotel just before we left...