I’d heard about a fab little spa that were offering special pre-holiday treatments, so decided to risk the detour down to SW3. I wasn’t disappointed. As pretty as it is peaceful, the Chelsea Day Spa tends to pretty much all of your pre-hols beautification needs, from tip to toe. I was keen to try out their BLT – named after your bum, legs and tum, although I like to think of it as a last-minute solution when you’ve had too many of its gastronomic namesakes – which promises to whip you into shape before you jet off. An expert mix of cleansing, lymphatic drainage massage, exfoliation and moisturising mask left my lower half positively glowing and soft as a baby’s proverbial. It also left me completely blissed out and ready for stage two.
I treated me and my newly smoothed limbs to a Vita Liberata spray tan, so as to not scare the locals on my first bikini-reveal. Beloved of celebrities looking for ‘subtle glow’ rather than ‘Sugar Hut neon’, it is great for starting your holiday as you mean to go on, i.e. golden rather than milk bottle. As for my tootsies, after a winter hibernation something serious was 
required. This was delivered in the form of the New York pedicure with Callus Therapy, where dead skin is banished by applying special patches, binding the feet in cling film, and applying special oils to really penetrate into the skin. A slick of polish later and I was good to go. And the best thing? Two weeks later, post-holiday, the colour is still going strong, and my feet are still in surprisingly good shape, having suffered daily flip-flop abuse. Seriously good news.
If you’re not going on holiday, of course, then I’m pretty sure I will have lost you on the first paragraph, which is a shame; because a day of pampering like this is enough to put a post-vacation spring in your step – even if you didn’t make it further than Fulham!
69a King’s Road SW3 (020 7351 0911). From 4 September you can also head down to sister spa, the Chelsea Day Spa Boutique, 53 Hollywood Road SW10 (020 7351 4555)