LATEST UPDATES

UPDATED EDIT 21/12/2024 at 1pm

The "latest" has now changed a little from what is was two days ago. We can now do an appointment tomorrow morning (Sunday) and on Monday at 1:30pm. (Monday morning has now been booked). If you want the Sunday morning appointment we need to know by 10pm this evening or we'll arrange other things to do at that time.

CHRISTMAS

We are taking at least nine days off over the Christmas period. However, we will still reply to enquiries during this period and take bookings for January (Already got the first two bookings for January).

Tuesday 24th through to 1st January we are off for Christmas.

Thursday 2nd Jan 2025, business as usual.

The latest newsletter was sent out a few days ago to those who’ve subscribed to it (now numbering 92). Some of it’s contents have already been recently covered on this page, but I’ve copied an edited version below for anyone who wants to read all the other stuff. If you've not seen it already, please also scroll much further down and read our recent personal statement.

Copy of NEWSLETTER DECEMBER 2024 below in italics (edited down slightly)

SHED

My shed is too small. At 5ft by 7ft it’s not nearly big enough for the stuff I want to put in it. I used to have a larger shed, and that was full too. In fact, you could give me two sheds and I’d fill them in no time.

But there’s only a limited amount of space, and I often get to the point where it’s so untidy and cluttered that I can hardly get in and find anything. So every now and again I need a clear-out. Chucking out all that useless crap that I thought I might need but didn’t. Tins of paint with an inch of gunge at the bottom. Old bits of rusty hardware that “might come in handy one day”, except that “one day” never seems to occur. Old oily rags that should have been binned a year ago and replaced with cleaner rags. Then it’s a matter of tidying what’s left so it’s easy to access, and leaving room for new bits-n-bobs to come.

I think our minds are a bit like that. They can only hold so much. Our headspace is limited, and every now and again we need to take stock of what’s important to us and clear the rest of the crap out. Maybe there’s a toxic friendship that has run it’s course? Maybe you’re dancing to everyone else’s tune to the extent that you can’t even recall what your own tune sounds like? Maybe your values and beliefs have changed and yet you’re still running on old programs? Tidying means sorting our priorities out. You wouldn’t leave your phone without any charge for long… you’d plug it in. Sometimes our minds, our bodies, our entire lives need plugging in. If you have dependants or obligations to others, you can’t pour from an empty vessel. Your wellbeing matters too. 

MASSAGE AND TALKING

It’s common for us to chit-chat with clients. In fact, small-talk, a laugh and a smile go a long way towards establishing that good sort of rapport that helps the client-therapist relationship to flourish. Often clients will also bring some of their own personal issues too, and this is where it helps to plan ahead. Here are some things we’d like clients to bear in mind if they have stuff they want to talk about whilst they’re with us.

Val is often happy to talk about some of your personal or relational issues. She has lots of experience and help to offer, but she is not a trained counsellor and may sometimes suggest that you book a separate counselling session with me (Brian). If you know you’re likely to want to talk, and that it could add considerable time to your visit with us, then please let us know so we can factor that in to both our timings and fees. It may be that you want to talk but we have another client booked in just after you, or that we have other commitments and obligations that we’re tied to.

OFFERS IN JANUARY? POSSIBLY…

Occasionally we make offers and see what happens. Last summer we made a series of offers and noted what was most popular. Some offers we tried over the years have had little impact, and some clients have made use of introductory offers but never returned.

After the Christmas spend, finances can be tight. But it’s also a time when people like to chill and breathe again, and what better way to do this with a massage. So watch out on the Updates page of our website for anything we decide to offer during January. 

EMAIL ADDRESSES

 Occasionally we turn down bookings from new clients because of their unwillingness to supply an email address so we can send out further information when they want tantric massage. There are a few things we wish to say about this…

It has come to light that some clients are reluctant because they assume we will be sending them marketing emails every other day. This isn’t the case. Only those who ask to go on the newsletter list get emailed, and that only gets sent out every 2-3 months.

We get puzzled when clients say they can’t give their email because it’s shared with their partner. Really? It makes us wonder… makes us suspicious. Do you know how easy and quick it is to set up a private email address?

The reason we send out extra info by email is because there is so much more we need to say than could comfortably fit in a user-friendly manner on a website. It might seem unnecessary to certain clients, but it matters a lot to us that clients know exactly what we’re about (and not about) so the session goes smoothly.

COUPLES  I know I often post about this, but it’s happening again so I’m mentioning it again. Men… please talk to your partner about couples massage BEFORE making enquiries with us. Because 4 times out of 5 your partner won’t be interested and your fantasy bubble will be burst in ten seconds. Secondly, when I say I need your partner to phone and confirm the enquiry, I mean it. I will not engage in endless messaging with armchair fantasists for their own personal amusement. Thirdly, while dreamers dream, genuine couples are genuinely booking in and having a genuine real-life experience!

A VIRTUAL WORLD OF FAUX EXPERIENCE?

There’s an advert the BBC have been running where they mention discussion on AI. You’ve probably seen it. At the end there’s a guy who’s just had an old fashioned shave with cut-throat razor and he says, “I wouldn’t let a robot do that”.

I remember as a child having to go to the phone box to phone somebody up. That’s if the person I wanted to speak to even had a phone of their own. Eventually, my parents got their own landline installed; it felt like we were the last ones in the street. My dad would allow me about two minutes on the phone if I wanted to make arrangements with friends to meet up. Phone calls were made to arrange things. They weren’t substitutes for actually meeting up in person.

Fast forward fifty years and meeting people virtually is part of the norm. But to me, nothing beats the vibe, the dynamic, the energy of meeting in person.

“Online” didn’t exist when I was a child. Now there are many things we can do online. But you can’t experience a massage online. You have to go out and experience it in the flesh; literally! No amount of artificial intelligence is going to give you that human-to-human experience. 

CASH OR CARD?

They say “cash is king”, and it is for us too… or at least it was until recently. In 2024 we encountered a practical difficulty when it came to paying cash into a bank account. This was mainly to do with changes in the post office and banking rules, and also a growing number of bank branch closures.

Some clients prefer paying by card because it’s just more convenient than looking around for a cash machine, whereas some clients still prefer paying by cash. Many ask us how we’d prefer to be paid. Well if we say by card then we get charged for every transaction. If we say cash then we’ve got to make a journey to pay (most of) it in, but at least we don’t lose any value.

It seems like banks and retailers are squeezing us all towards a cashless society. There’s even a garden centre we sometimes go to that has a notice on the door saying “Please note we only accept payment by card”. I suppose it means that none of the staff can steal from the tills and it saves the hassle of till balancing and trips to the bank to pay in. Even the self-service tills in supermarkets have restrictions on the amount of tills that take cash. Feels like we’re all being manipulated and dictated to without public consultation.

So for now, we’ll happily accept payment in whatever way you want, but if restrictions tighten then we may start saying that we’d “prefer” card.

BOOBS (CH4)

There’s a fascinating documentary on Channel 4 which I think may still be available on their demand platform, called Boobs. Various ladies discuss their own feelings about their boobs and social attitudes over the years. It also featured some ladies who’d undergone breast surgery, and it was their views that I found particularly interesting. On the one hand they didn’t want the presence or absence of boobs to be the main determinant of their gender or femininity, one the other hand they didn’t want something like a mastectomy to reduce their sexuality or sexual experience. It gets me thinking… I’ve had clients who had breast enlargement and breast reduction, but I’ve never had a client who had a mastectomy. It would be a pity if someone like that wanted to book in but lacked the confidence to do.

REFLECTING BACK OVER 2024

Overall it’s been okay, with some aspects that were good, and some that were not so good. It’s become a bit harder for us to predict (and therefore plan) trends and patterns when it comes to making appointments. Things that we’d kind of got used to seemed not to apply as much this year. For example, August was easily our quietest month for ten years straight, but in the last two years it’s been surprisingly busy.

Five years ago, it was common for clients to book 7-10 days in advance, but nowadays an increasing number of clients are leaving it a lot later, and booking in “on the hoof” with just a day or so’s notice. The irony being that the more we ask clients not to do this, the more they are tending to do it. This has made personal planning more difficult, as we are often faced with deciding between sticking to plans already in motion or dropping everything and prepping to do a massage.

We have had far less trouble with male clients attempting to touch Val inappropriately without her consent, but far more trouble with male clients who attend with poor personal hygiene or bad breath! The number of male clients who won’t be getting a second visit has rocketed in 2024! And many of them won’t know why. We can’t always work out if these men are oblivious to their own unpleasant aromas, or simply don’t care. But if they are wondering why their partners have “gone off sex” then one possibility might be that they need to look at their own personal hygiene before they look for other reasons? To date, we have still, never in thirteen years, had a female client with poor hygiene. They always seem to know how to turn up. 

The number of female clients who enquire is roughly the same, or slightly down. But the percentage who actually book in following an initial enquiry has fallen, and we can only assume that they’ve probably bottled it… being weighed down by social constructs, social expectations, feelings of guilt etc. From what we can make out, insecurities surrounding personal body image are also on the rise. There’s a long list! We also suspect that a few of them can’t really get their head around the fact that Val is genuinely totally okay with me giving them a naked massage, and that she won’t punch their lamps out on the way out, lol.

The amount of enquiries from couples has increased, but the number who actually book in has decreased. I think this is mostly to do with men who enquire before talking it over with their partner, instead of the other way round. I also suspect that some couples can’t reach agreement between themselves as to what the boundaries or rules are going to be for their own personal experience.

The percentage of clients who come with something they wish to talk about is increasing. This is understandable, as coming for tantric massage is often booked within a context of other things happening in those people’s lives. It may be sexual, relational, stress at home or work, a midlife crisis, a change in outlook or perspective on life. This is all fine, and we are often willing to talk, but please keep in mind we may another client booked in after you, or some other obligation that has a specific time linked to it. So if you wish to talk for more than twenty minutes or so, please remember to tell us this beforehand so we can factor it in. We may also suggest you consider our Integrated massage service, where we quote for combinations of massage and talking therapy according to your needs.

We’ve done some Massage Day workshops for couples, but not as many as we’d hoped or expected. The couples that do book in for these workshop days are invariably perplexed why we don’t get more bookings for these days, because they’ve loved it so much and for relatively little cost. We nickname these days “Have-a-go-yourselves” days, where you can learn and practice the basics of massage. Details on the website, and as a reminder, by “couples” we mean any two adults of any age, sexuality or gender who know each other by way of marriage, relationship, friendship or casual acquaintance who are happy to book in together and work with us and in the presence of each other.

Apart from massage, we both read quite a lot. My book of the year is “Another Self” by Dr. Cindy Engel. A fascinating exploration of somatic empathy that attempts to bridge the gap between science and new-age woo woo. The author is both a bodyworker and therapist so I was fascinated by what she had to say.

The most disappointing book of the year was “The Salt Path” by Raynor Winn, especially as so many rave about it and there’s talk of a film being made starring Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs. I found it repetitive and boring. A story with far too much froth and wadding that could have been told in half the number of pages.

Unfortunately, the year is ending with increasing challenges that threaten our own personal joy. I’d like to say that it’s only been for a few weeks, but in truth it’s been building all year. These are the challenges that many of us have faced, are facing, or will face shortly. The challenge of how we care for the elderly in an age of improved care and medical resources, but not necessarily with the quality of life that we hope will go with it. We live longer, but not necessarily better or happier. Suffering that used to be brief is now prolonged in society’s attempts to spin our existence out by a few more years. So we look forward to 2025 like looking into the great unknown. We take one week at a time and seek opportunities to find joy, laughter, friendship, relaxation, days out, and of course, massage! 

Finally, Happy Christmas to you all.

I think it’s worth us all remembering the true meaning Christmas…. Ruby Port with lemonade, and lots and lots of chocolate!

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TEMPORARY SUSPENSIONS until further notice. Val's knees and back are suffering way too much from repetitive strain. This is mostly due to the demands of performing Swedish massage. For the rest of December, and possibly longer, Val won't be taking any bookings for Swedish/Swedish naturist massage, nor will she be taking bookings for two-hour tantric massage. The ONLY massages that are on offer from Val at present are 60 minute and 90 minute tantric massage sessions. ALL bookings that have already been made for Swedish/Naturist massage will be honoured.

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IMPORTANT PERSONAL STATEMENT

Val and I each have very elderly dependants with increasingly complex and demanding needs. Our efforts and participation towards attending to those needs can be quite time-consuming and mentally draining. To date, we have not had to cancel or reschedule any appointments in response to last minute obligations or emergencies, and we are crossing our fingers that this continues to be the case. However, in the last six months we have had to give careful consideration to when we schedule appointments, and how many appointments we choose to provide each week. This has sometimes resulted in us telling clients we are “not available”, when, normally, we would have been available in more favourable circumstances.

We need to try and work in a way that allows for us to be as authentic as possible, mindful of why clients come and carrying out our massages with a commitment to mission… as opposed to it just being a job, or with little or no interest in the process. For us, this is best done when we allow sufficient time, space and energy to devote to a variety of important things that are going on right now. It’s a balancing act of meeting other’s needs, providing a good massage experience for clients, and attending to our own welfare and leisure time (you can’t pour from an empty pot, as they say). The irony is that if we don't try and cram in too many massages, then we are better and more connected, or in tune, with the ones we manage to do.

There’s another thing to factor in. You could call it an irony, a paradox or possibly even a contradiction! We’ve always preferred and worked in a way whereby we plan and take bookings made well in advance. And by that we mean at least two days ahead… preferably longer. The more we stress this, the more the exact opposite has happened, and we now get more last minute requests than ever before! There is no doubt in my mind that it is indicative of the increasingly chaotic, secretive, and disorganised way in which many people live. And it is also indicative of how working lives have changed, with piss-taking bosses who think they own their employees 24/7 and can schedule their lives with complete disregard for family life, leisure time and showing disrespect for scheduled rest days. Stuff that was unheard of fifty years ago, but now (for some reason) is supposed to be acceptable.

The flipside to the way that things have changed for Val and I is that we may be able to do more short-notice appointments than usual, but here’s the thing… we are reluctant to set a precedent in client’s minds, because the fact we may be available at short notice on one day does not necessarily mean we can do the same for the next dozen times you ask! What we recommend is that you check this page on our website, to see if we’ve updated any short availability.

This statement has been prompted by recent unforeseen circumstances that make it even more applicable over the next couple weeks.

To summarize… on the one hand there may be an increase in the times we suddenly find we can fit in a massage, on the other hand we are trying to be more measured and structured in how we plan the working part of our week, and this will almost inevitably mean a slight reduction in the overall number of massages we provide each week, making it even more important and relevant that clients plan and book ahead in order to maximise the chance of getting an appointment at the time they want. Unfortunately, it also increases the risk that one day we may be the ones who have to cancel or reschedule at short notice, because we are living on the edge of uncertainty with our parents.... although it hasn't happened yet.

WHEN YOU ENQUIRE…. Please tell us your full name and the type of massage you want. Sending a text that says “Can you do a massage on Friday?” tells us nothing about what sort of massage, how long for, what time you are thinking of, who you want the massage of, whether you’re new to us, and what your name is.

EMAIL ADDRESSES.  Occasionally we turn down bookings from new clients because of their unwillingness to supply an email address so we can send out further information when they want tantric massage. There are a few things we wish to say about this…

• It has come to light that some clients are reluctant because they assume we will be sending them marketing emails every other day. This isn’t the case. Only those who ask to go on the newsletter list get emailed, and that only happens every 2-3 months.

• We get puzzled when clients say they can’t give their email because it’s shared with their partner. Really? Do you know how easy and quick it is to set up a private email address?

• The reason we send out extra info by email is because there is so much more we need to say than could comfortably fit in a user-friendly manner on a website. It might unnecessary to certain clients, but it matters a lot to us that clients know exactly what we’re about (and not about) so the session goes smoothly.