The Vitality Show 2009

This was my fourth or fifth time at the Vitality show. I find it hard to believe that it’s been going for ten years. But then I find some of the stalls hard to reconcile with the show’s slogan about taking care of the girls. However once again despite not buying much (some wine, dairy free chocolate, chili sauce and dried fruit) I came away with loads of heavy bags.

Good stuff:

*A fun day out with a couple of buddies. This has become something of a tradition for us.
*New venue was slightly easier to get to and apparently we could have visited the Ideal Home show as well (but didn’t discover this until too late to really be bothered with it).
*Good programme of workshops and talks – Deciding in advance some of the talks we wanted to go to helped to give our day some structure. Facial yoga was good fun and the Burlesque taster was fabulous.
*Much less 'let me read your angel card and predict your fabulous spirit guided future' than in previous years. There is a place for having your aura read I’m sure but I don’t think this is it.
*The Vitamix demonstration – When my current stuff dies I want one of these because it does everything and lasts a lifetime (or twenty odd years in any case).
*The Highways Agency stand – offering you the chance to play with card, glue and snippets of pretty things and think about how you’d spend your time if you weren’t caught in traffic. Basically they were promoting the travel information services they offer. I usually get my traffic updates from the BBC but I’d much rather get them from the horses mouth.
*Black Tower sparkling wine in little cans – Perfect for picnics.
*Mr Singh’s Chilli sauce – like a hot salsa, how could I resist?

Less then impressed by:
*The talk on de-ageing your wardrobe – We left it very early on as we just couldn’t stand all the celebrity name dropping and less then original/inspiring content. Plus I’m never going to give my full attention to a presenter who opens with the line “Hello, girlie girls.”
*Not enough massage treatments – we ended up going to Ibiza Angels who were actually very good but we spent time trying to check out alternatives too (rather difficult when there aren’t any!).
*People with wheelie suitcases – What do they have in them? Why don’t they check them into the cloakroom?
*No healthy lunch options – we took our own packed in laptop lunch containers. I’m so glad we did because the food on offer seemed to be all sausages and greasy Panini.
*The Philadelphia sponsored cooking demos – you were just waiting for the chef to add a certain cream cheese to the ingredients.

Other things to worry about:

*No Colour me beautiful, Lush or Redwood foods.

*Skin breaking out after. Obviously my complexion is usually flawless. Was this bought on by facial yoga?

* Do people actually need showers that change colour?

My approach to next year: Plan in advance which talks to attend. Wear solid shoes to avoid being run over by wheelie suitcases. Pack healthy lunch. Consider booking massage closer to home for day after.