#103: The Hot Tub
Spending a few days in a world of bubbles.
For just two and a bit days I got to spend a short holiday in a wonderful house in North Devon which featured, among other things, an outdoor pool and a hot tub, inside the little hut above. With the doors opened wide to let in a gentle breeze, I experienced many a happy moment in that warm tub full of bubbles.
A while back I wrote about my new-found love for swimming, and so just the outdoor pool would have made me happy enough. To then end every swimming session with good long sit in the hot tub was like the cherry on top, the icing on the cake. Particularly when this outdoor pool is only ‘heated’ to a rather cool temperature for the general swimmer. After a swift and energetic swim I would then submerge myself in the hot tub to warm up.
It is an activity of pure relaxation to sit in a hot tub, one where there is nothing to do but talk to the person next to you, or look out at the view. It is a time of comfort when your body is contained in this water bath of warmth. For in simple terms, a hot tub is like a perpetually running bath, except it makes its own bubbles, and it’s a bit more of a social occasion.
So of course, in all this time for relaxation I also had time to think. Time to sit and move my arms slowly through the water, watching the ripples they make when it is just still, when the bubbles are turned off. It becomes like a still lake, where I could tap the tips of my fingers on the surface of the water and make soft ‘ploop’ water droplet sounds. I could sit in this cosy warmth and stare out at the wonderful Devonshire view, and let my mind wander.
One time in the last few days there were five us in the hot tub, making the water start to slip over the edge of the tub as we made the water level rise a bit too much. As we sat enjoying the hot tub, a luxury we were not used to, we chatted about general things, conversation wandering as conversation does. It got me thinking about the public baths of history, and I started to understand a little better why they were such social hubs. In a hot tub, like in the baths, you sit with multiple people in comfortable warmth and there are no other distractions. You either sit and talk, or you sit in silence. You may have come to get clean, but it was also a social occasion, a meeting place like any other. Today’s hot tubs are a little token from that social experience of the past.
This hot tub existed in my life for only a few short days of luxury, and I am very far from that hot tub now. In my dreams one day, far in the future, I’ll have a hot tub of my own, a place for social evenings or periods of solitary contemplation, caccooned in the warmth and comfort of massaging bubbles. Until then, I will just have to enjoy the memory of this wonderful little holiday.
