A Girly Day Out.

Daylesford is a small town in Victoria, about 90 minutes drive from Melbourne. It's just beautiful. And it's one of my favourite places to go. Lots of ex-Melbourne people living there, so you can be sure of a good coffee and decent food. It's famous for its natural springs, and I suppose with its century-long tradition of people visiting to 'take the waters' for improved health, it's no surprise that the town has quite the reputation for well-being and natural therapies. There is an abundance of choice when it comes to these: massage, spa baths, salt wraps, mud wraps, fish-slapping therapy okay I made that last one up.

Fixit and I love going to the next-door-town of Hepburn Springs where there is a fantastic old Spa Centre. We always choose an aromatherapy mineral water bath; absolute bliss during, and complete and utter tranquillity and happiness afterwards. Sadly, the Centre (it's a heritage building) is having extensive repairs this year. Fixit and I will visit again when it re-opens but meantime, he had to stay in Melbourne with the kids.

Because I was having a Girly Day Out. With Astrid, Jenny and Nell.

Astrid was designated driver (2 car family, didn't want to deprive the Dads of family transport) and she was supposed to collect Nell and I at around 10am. At 10.30am I rang her house. I ordered a taxi to Daylesford half an hour ago, can you tell me if it's been despatched? I asked the receptionist. Five minutes ago, was the reply. The driver needed coffee and the cab needed cleaning first. Then Fixit spoke to him and they arranged that the Fixit boys would all go over to Astrid's house for a day of play with her three kids. (Where they had a lovely day involving minimal childcare because the kids played beautifully and the 2 dads did the cryptic crossword, some sudoku, minded the adorable baby, fed the hungry, and chilled out.)

Lots of laughs on the car journey, and only one small getting a bit lost incident (because Jenny thought she could navigate a short-cut). First port of call upon arrival was at the Boathouse, for toilet, coffee and bookstore browsing, in that order. I found a Noel Streatfeild book to add to the collection, and the others found books to make them happy too.

Then we walked part way round Lake Daylesford to inspect a spring. And just like old-fashioned ladies, we 'took the waters'. Mineral spring waters. I quite like the taste, despite the sulphur overtones. The others made faces.

"Does anyone want a tic-tac?" asked Jen straight afterwards. We all took one.

We decided to eat lunch at The Lavender Farm, in Hepburn Springs, which was most enjoyable except for the wasps trying to share our food. According to Nell, in Austria people just shoo wasps away like you do blowflies, but we were nervous and too scared of annoying them into a stinging frenzy to take this approach, so eventually we moved inside.

Then it was time for the main event, the Hour-Long-Massage!!!!!

It took me much longer than I anticipated to really relax into the massage and enjoy it. This was partly due to the dismal so-called relaxation music (Ha!! On both counts!) ; when I eventually worked out that I was finding it intrusive my masseuse turned the volume down for me and all was well. And partly I think because it's been a long time since anyone but Fixit touched my bare flesh. So it took a little while to adjust to that, and then I started wondering if I was finding it in anyway erotic. Because you know, there's a lot of the right ingredients, such as bare skin, hot oils, prolonged touch... But eventually the brain shut up and then it was great, and she gave my feet a magnificent going over (sorely needed and much appreciated) and the scalp massage at the end was just blissblissbliss.

Back out to the waiting room to find Nell and Jenny looking dazed, relaxed and oily. Astrid appeared a further 15 minutes later and seeing as she was the only one of us to have a male masseuse a fair bit of hilarity took place amidst enquiries as to happy endings? and claims of special treatment/short-changing. Nell said she felt as though she smelled like a chip after all the vegetable oil. We compared treatments. We agreed that none of us had found the massages erotic as such, but that we all felt so wonderful afterwards there was an excellent chance that the stay-at-home husbands would benefit from our day away.

Next time we hope the dads get their act together a bit more and have a beautiful home-cooked meal ready for us on our return. But takeaway was an acceptable substitute.

I love going away with the girls. Good company and lots of laughs.

Thanks for coming, chicks.