Skinny latte and a massage to go... it's the latest craze

Aiming to relieve the stresses of Birmingham's busy business folk, and Divas (yours truly, of course), Urban Coffee Co have teamed up with wellbeing experts, Natural Self, (run by Dave Green - pictured below) to launch 'Wellbeing Wednesday'. Customers dropping into the coffee shop between 12-3pm on a Wednesday can choose to receive a complimentary relaxation or wellbeing treatment; anything and everything from reflexology and Indian head massages, through to emotional rebalancing and reiki.

The bad news is, it's only being run on the first Wednesay of each month for now, so sadly YOU my lovely friends, are going to have to wait until August to try it out. But never fear, I took it upon myself to not tell you and make like a guinea pig by trying it out for you on this month's launch which was, well, Wednesday just gone.

Now, being the cynic I am, I generally 'shy' away from most things labelled 'spiritual healing', so I told myself I'd just opt for a standard back, neck and shoulder massage, seated on one of those funny, upright-face-down-legs-straddling-the-back jobbies - this was a bad day to wear a knee length dress, I realised, but hopefully no one was paying attention so I rolled with it.

I must say that under normal circumstances I wouldn't let a stranger run their hands all over my back neck and shoulders in public, unless of course the stranger was Jake Gyllenhaal, but I was very impressed. Not only was it extremely relaxing, I was given advice on how to correct areas of tension, how to strengthen areas that need it as well as posture. Yoga, apparently, is the answer. And actually, I wouldn't argue, having once reaped he benefits of regular usage of my Barbara Currie 'Power packed Yoga' DVD. It may be time to dust that old thing off again...

Anyway, far from that being my lot, I was then urged ino receiving elemental healing; a process hat involves four coloured ribbons - representing fire, water, earth and air - and a pendant. Apparently my fire element is dominant, and imbalanced along with air (just to clarify here, this doesn't mean I am full of hot air), but my water and earth are in perfect balance. So the process was to use the water and earth elements to rebalance me.

I will remind you here, I am a cynic when it comes to elemental and spiritual healing, but nevertheless, I am willing to give things a try. I'm not quite sure how I would measure whether this process worked for me - the basic conclusion was that I don't give myself enough 'me' time - unless you count the fact that after having a day off work on Friday, I did nothing but sleep in, make myself a nice omelette, wash my hair and eat a waist-expanding amount of chocolate. But if you are interested in this type of experience, I would certainly recommend going along to one of these Wellbeing Wednesdays.

If in the meantime you want to find out about the list of therapies on offer from Natural Self, visit their website. And if you just fancy a coffee, I know a good little place on Church Street called Urban Coffee Co....

For now, I'm off to plan my yoga sessions. Ciao.