Thursday 12 December 2013

A day with my mum

Last month, I was lucky enough to accompany my mum along to a spa day at Rowhill Grange in the lovely Kent countryside. Luckily, it is only about 15 minutes from where I live, and after navigating my way there, I realised I have actually driven past it a few times! 
Rowhill Grange is a hotel and Utopia Spa in Wilmington, Kent, and is set in 15 acres of private grounds, including a Victorian walled garden, some beautiful wild flowers and ancient roses and was so tranquil. We arrived at just after 9am and drove up their amazingly beautiful driveway, meandering through their picturesque grounds. 






We started off by having a nice cup of coffee and perusing the lunch menu to make our choices for what we would like. Mum and I both went for the Leek and Potato soup with croutons for starters, then I followed that with the Salmon, and mum went for Chicken. We then had a little chat before being shown around the spa so we knew what we were doing. Then we got changed and got straight into the pool! 


There were three different pools - a full length swimming pool, a hydrotherapy pool and a jacuzzi - and a sauna and a steam room. We had a lovely morning and used most of the facilities, and then got showered and dressed for our lunch.




It was gorgeous! The soup was lovely and thick, and tasted very leeky - this sounds weird, but a lot of leek and potato soups I have had in the past have been a lot creamier in colour, and therefore contained more potato. This soup was a lovely green colour, and the first thing you could taste was the leek. It was very nice. Then along came our main course, and they both looked amazing. My salmon was cooked perfectly, and went really well with the chorizo and bean cassoulet. Mum enjoyed her chicken, and the red wine joux was delicious.

After lunch, we headed back down to the changing rooms, spent a little time in the sauna, then headed back to the swimming pool. As we were one of the first ones to have lunch, when we got back to the spa, everyone else was still eating. So we had the pool to ourselves. I swam about 15-20 lengths, something I miss doing when we go swimming with the kids as I have to be watching them all the time. But being able to just swim, something I used to love doing as a child, was so nice. I could clear my mind and just concentrate on swimming, and that was a great feeling.
After a couple of hours of going between the steam room, hydrotherapy pool and jacuzzi, it was time to get showered and dressed. In the changing rooms, there were some great hair dryers that worked wonders on my thick hair, and also some GHD straighteners. I made full use of those bad boys!



So after getting dressed and packing all our bits up, it was time to head home. We had a great day, and it was really nice to spend time with my mum. We both lead very busy 'mum' lives, and don't get to spend a lot of time away from the children, let alone with each other, so it was great to just chat and relax.
The setting was amazing and I wish we had had more time to explore the gardens of this beautiful place. The staff were all very helpful, the facilities were brilliant and I can't tell you how much I enjoyed the food. I would highly recommend this spa for a lovely relaxing day. 

Check out their website here.

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