Skip to main content

Massage

Today my back is aching and the rest of my body feels... well... there. I am also rather dehydrated and I generally feel like curling up back into bed.

This blissful state was brought up by another of those new experiences London offers me from time to time. Yesterday I was given my first ever real massage. Before that, like most people, I had had my shoulders squeezed for a few minutes by a friend, and once and guy in a sauna had showed me hand and feet massage but that was about it.

I met PMC, the masseur, online some weeks ago and we seem on the way to friendship. He is a musician but on Sunday we started chatting about his other professional talents. Somehow he ended up offering me to come over and have a massage. Because I can not afford to pay for the service, we agreed that I would provide something in exchange. I am to design a webpage for him to advertise his services.

When I got to PMC's place in north London, started with a nice relaxed chat about his future webpage over a cup of nettle tea. Another first in my obviously sheltered life; I had never had nettle tea before (I think I'll buy some, it was nice). Then PMC set up his table, asked me to choose some music, closed the drapes, made me strip and lie on the table, and started to work on my back.

Having heard people rave about how good it feels, I wasn't quite sure what to expect. The 90 minutes the session lasted went very quickly indeed and some work was obviously needed on certain muscle groups (shoulders and calves particularly). Unfortunately, as is all too often the case, my brain went on overdrive for most of the session, which, I think, prevented my from enjoying the physical experience fully. Not the first time I have that sort of problem.

Once we were finished, it was time to go to rehearsal with the Chorus. That meant resisting the impulse to go to sleep, dress up and go off in the cold, windy evening. Melted snow was falling. By the time I got to the rehearsal place, just on time, I was cold and flustered. Probably not the best way to capitalise on my earlier experience.

After a good night's sleep, I woke up feeling like I had been battered; like one would feel after an unusual work out. I seem to have a little more energy than usual though. PMC is worried that he might have been a little too forceful for a first-timer. He tells me that today's aches are a sign of how needed the massage was and that I would need another session to put things right. Instead, I will simply go back to daily bad positioning in front of this computer and sleeping on an old futton. I will probably try to start using pillows again, though.

I think I'll go and do a bit of stretching...


Comments

  1. I do believe he was a bit too rough on you. I have never had a real massage but just like you I’ve heard it is good. One day I’ll be as lucky as you to find a professional who would do it for me.... free

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Please leave your comment here. Note that comments are moderated and only those in French or in English will be published. Thank you for taking the time to read this blog and to leave a thought.

Popular posts from this blog

A Short History of the Elephant and Castle and Its Name

Last night I attended a lecture by local historian Stephen Humphrey who discussed the general history of the Elephant & Castle, focussing more particularly on what he called its heyday (between 1850 and 1940). This is part of a week-long art project ( The Elephant Project ) hosted in an empty unit on the first floor of the infamous shopping centre, aiming to chart some of the changes currently happening to the area. When an historian starts talking about the Elephant and Castle, there is one subject he can not possibly avoid, even if he wanted to. Indeed my unsuspecting announcement on Facebook that I was attending such talk prompted a few people to ask the dreaded question: Where does the name of the area come from, for realz? Panoramic view of the Elephant and Castle around 1960/61. Those of us less badly informed than the rest have long discarded the theory that the name comes from the linguistic deformation of "Infanta de Castille", a name which would have become at

Rev. Peter Mullen's Blog

Rev. Peter Mullen is the chaplain to the London Stock Exchange and the rector of St Michael's Cornhill and St Sepulchre without Newgate in the City. Rev. Peter Mullen was also until recently a blogger. Sadly the result of his cyber labour seem to have been deleted but Google has thankfully cached some of it and I have saved a copy for posterity, just in case. The deletion of Rev. Mullen's writings might just have something to do with the fact that last week, the Evening Standard and then the Daily Mail published an article (the same article actually) about some of those very writings (even though the elements of said writings being quoted had been published in June this year, at the time of the blessing ceremony which took place between two members of the Church of England in St Bartholomew the Great - picture ). In the article, we learned what the Rev. thinks about gay people and what should be done to them: We ["Religious believers"] disapprove of homosexuality

Liam Messam and Tamati Ellison Swap Jerseys

I am having a bit of a vacuous evening looking at images of pretty rugby players. Addidas, with its latest viral campaign, Jersey Swap , seems to be squarely aiming at the gay market with a selection of five antipodean rugby players, visitor to the website can select and see take their tops off and... well... swap jersey (those interested can create posters too). My favorites of the bunch are Liam Messam and Tamati Ellison . The pictures of their pretty faces and bulging naked torsos (excuse me while I sit down for a second!) included to this post should tell you why. A job well done for Addidas. This will go round the Internet for a while, I think.