No, I haven’t suddenly decided to turn to a life of animal cruelty and being hated by small children. If you read the business jargon link in the penultimate paragraph, all will become clear. It was just too good a title to pass up.

I can now reveal Julia’s secret destination to be Eden Hall Spa. I think she is safe from kidnap now as I am on the point of picking her up and whisking her away for a birthday meal somewhere that she won’t have to wash up. Gosh, I treat her well…

The website, though informative about the experience you can purchase, is strangely reticent on the subject of former uses for the building.

They are less reticent here and here. I particularly like the term fish bait farm. They mean maggots. I had some dealings with maggot farms in the past and I confess I’ve never seen one as grand as this, or ever thought “This would make a nice up-market health spa.” It’s also been a poultry farm, a kennels, offices, restaurant and equestrian centre.

Just to add a little more to the story, the conservatory, that once held 2,000 plants, was destroyed in 1942 when a Lancaster exploded at Syserston. I’m assuming that it was loaded with bombs at the time. The Lancaster, that is, not the conservatory.

There is a footnote about an explosion here, and a mention of Bill Reid VC who used to work at BOCM with my father, as I may have mentioned previously. I think, to be fair, he was more famous for winning the VC than for working at BOCM.

So there you go – a relaxing day of luxury for one half of the family while the other has been making wooden signs with Men in Sheds and wrestling with the complexities of merging the views of five people into one SWOT analysis. The process has been slightly simplified by one member of the management committee saying that he prefers to stick to blue-sky thinking rather than think of negative things like weaknesses. That, of course, is what landed us in this situation in the first place – 500 great ideas but no actual progress.

Anyway, that’s all for now – I just had the phone call that the day of pampering is over.