Spa Spy at GSG Awards

I’m writing this the day after the Good Spa Guide 2015 Awards – what a fantastic night! BAFTAs jog on: we know how to throw a party here.

Not that everything went super smoothly. We are Spa Spies not Event Organisers. To paraphrase F Scott Fitzgerald (in Gatsby I think), we are more used to being guests than hosts!

One hiccup before the ceremony started – one of our Bubble Awards arrived broken. Luckily one of our more on-the-case Spies managed to procure some superglue from WH Smiths (tottering down the road in her heels) and glue it back together. The spa that won said they didn’t mind, bless them, but we’ve promised a replacement for when the effects of the evening wear off!

All our spa world guests looked glowing, as you’d imagine, despite being aquiver with anticipation. It is fantastic seeing the best UK spas getting the recognition they deserve (see our list of winners here). There are lots of heated discussions and painful decisions in the office in the meetings where we try to choose the Nationals – it’s when you suddenly realise how passionately fond you can become of your favourite spas. No wonder our readers response to the awards is so impressive. The day we announced the Awards online our website was so overwhelmed it crashed a few times.

Talking of fights, The Spa Spies had a bit of an impromptu uniform of black dress and bright red lipstick - must be the vintage vogue at the moment. Normally we wear nothing but towelling robes, even when in the office (joking). So you had four women dressed to the nines, all trying to get the stand to fit together around the 50 different waiting staff and band doing their warm up. Needless to say there was a pile of shoes as we all went into panic mode, stress levels threatening to send us a Sex and the City style fight: “They're my Louboutins damn it!” (I was only looking, honest…)

We also abandoned our table mates as we rushed about being hostesses, so poor Dermaluxe spent the night with us hurriedly trying to organise stuff rather than chatting politely. Still, they ended up with all the wine, and at least they had some lovely Germaine de Capuccini table decs to admire.

We Spies followed the advice of many a TV gumshoe and turned down the drink because we were ‘working’ – at least until the disco.

A special award goes to those who managed to party until the small hours, including the Motown Band. Once it would have been me doing shots at 2am in the hotel bar, but those days are long gone (sniff). Hence my envy with those who still can! After all that hard work, I had to demure/pass out just after midnight. Still managed to feel a little teary during Green & Black's Jo Fairley’s speech today – an amazing woman!