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When I was offered a sauna by Palmako, I was excited. I was quite ill at the time and friends have been telling me that I really could do with a sauna in the garden to help me get better. Lo and behold, here it is!

My thanks to #palmako https://www.youtube.com/@PalmakoUK

Their sauna page
https://palmako.co.uk/collections/saunas?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=22179766001&gbraid=0AAAAADyBZpb5FKR0p_gUVm6Tl3Z608s77&gclid=CjwKCAjwkaXUBhASEiwAZI3ds3fwU05CW69QuPc5Vs9vI8GUCuTrirIfpG2BsGilFr3xbRjUQ4_NWRoCfK8QAvD_BwE

Heidi and I were planting out small frizzy endive, our last job of the day before this sauna. I feel blessed to have this option in the garden and use it maybe twice a week. It's quick to light and heats up within an hour.

Apologies for the sound near the end. We are near to Yeovilton Airbase and a helicopter flew over.

Filmed by Nicola Smith August 2026, Somerset UK

I'm looking to use herbs from the garden in the sauna and have plenty of rosemary. Just soaking it in the water which I put on the stones gives a lovely aroma. Also Nicola found this recipe.
Rosemary infused oil:
Wash your rosemary leaves and let them dry completely. Using a pestle and mortar, bash the leaves to help them release their oils. Put the leaves into a heatproof vessel and cover them with the oil of your choice, olive oil or rapeseed oil both work well. Sit the vessel in a pot of simmering water, bain-marie style, and stir the oil and leaves constantly for 25 minutes. Leave to cool, then strain out the leaves through a fine mesh sieve or a piece of kitchen paper.
Pour the strained oil into a clean, sterilised bottle or jar, seal it and keep it in the fridge.

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Transcript
00:00This is an ad
00:03It's because in the winter when I was really ill actually I was offered a sauna and
00:10the deal is I make a nice video about it and
00:14Do you know what that is an absolute pleasure to do because this sauna has been a revelation for me
00:20I've long wanted a sauna here. I remember having sauna when I was in Finland. It was my first job
00:26I was au pair 1977 and
00:28and
00:29They had a lot of saunas in Finland and it was such a joy to go there most days and
00:35shoot out of the sauna and into the cold lake and at first I thought what is this and
00:40Yeah, it just was great. It's just I felt so good after that and
00:45It's a distant memory now. So it was so long ago and
00:48Then last winter when I was really ill in hospital and I had some friends come to see me
00:53And they were giving me their recipe for how I was going to get better and lead a full life
00:57again
00:58I was hard to imagine at that time, but here I am
01:02but part of their formula was get a sauna because they're so health-giving and
01:09What I've noticed from having it here, we've only been using it for a couple of months is
01:14the
01:15wonderful way that you just switch off in a sauna and almost like a meditation and
01:19And it kind of absorbs you and you you get re-energized through all of those things that mentally and
01:27physically through the hot and the cold and
01:30Just feel amazing after it and then my other concern with a sauna was well
01:35How much wood is it going to use God love a wood fired one?
01:38I don't really like the electric so much so I said I'd like a wood burning stove and
01:44to my joy, I've
01:45Realized it doesn't need much wood. So one fill of the the hod at the bottom of the stove
01:52Takes the temperature right up to 80 degrees centigrade. It's such a it's quite a small well insulated cabin
01:58it's the the Sarah sauna from Palmaco and
02:03You can see it's it's not huge
02:05It looks nice in the garden. I wasn't sure whether it would be a bit of an eye saw
02:09But actually it fits in so well that a lot of people visit here and they don't even notice it
02:14So yeah, I think that's a good sign and then it all arrived on a lorry
02:20Kind of flat packed and a guy put it all up in a day and a half and I forgot
02:27about the bindweed
02:27I'll explain that in a minute
02:29But yeah, it's a very compact lovely
02:33Sauna building and we're gonna have a go
02:36You can see the fires going really well
02:38It hasn't yet had time yet to lift the temperature. But having said that
02:42already in here, it's 30 degrees centigrade mid 80s Fahrenheit and that is
02:49On a day when outside the temperature has been no higher than 21 degrees 70 Fahrenheit. We've had quite a
02:55cool summer's day here
02:57So it shows how this room is what is holding heat already from the Sun
03:01It's got a almost south facing window
03:04Which is perfect and gives us this lovely view of the pond and the wild area and the pyramid
03:1320 minutes 15 even
03:15Yeah, look at that. This is so rapid 65 degrees from 30 so
03:24And already there's plenty of wood to burn so that that one big load of wood
03:29It's gonna be enough to
03:31For all I need this afternoon and I just want to
03:35Get some oil here. Nicolin has made some special
03:39Rosemary oil
03:41And we'll put the recipe in the description
03:44And the idea is we
03:47Add it to the water here
03:51So we just have a bit of water in the ladle to make steam
03:57And what other thing I never thought about when this sauna arrived it was May time
04:03Mad busy moment in the garden and look at this
04:08I never never occurred to me that the bindweed would grow so vigorously
04:13Through the floor even
04:14And yeah, there's some really long pieces here. I'm not particularly worried about it. It's just quite funny actually
04:21Indomitable bindweed an amazing opportunity what you're offering
04:26To teach on that level
04:30This um endive that we're planting this is frizzy endive
04:35Wallone and
04:37That one is scarole endive which
04:40We planted about two and a half weeks ago
04:43And that one is chicory for radicchio. So this is all
04:46Winter salads or sorry, I should say autumn. These will crop from
04:52Early to late autumn right the way through autumn will be well endive. It's incredible how it
04:57Just grows and grows
05:00In often quite dark days
05:04And
05:07When lettuce is not doing so much
05:14And you can see I'm planting pretty deep that's
05:17This is how I always do it because it's so dry
05:21And it will just really hold the moisture in
05:25And watering it quite gently they're quite small plants
05:29I'll come back later and do another water
05:31Do you have any more is that all? Okay
05:33Yeah that's good
05:34All right
05:38I think this one didn't get
05:40Oh maybe it did
05:41Yeah that one's a bit fragile
05:43Okay let's pop these back in the greenhouse
05:45All right
05:51Well that's been a long day
05:53I'm looking forward to this
05:55Swallow
05:57So yeah here goes
05:59Guess what?
06:11Oh my gosh
06:18Oh yeah
06:24Oh my gosh
06:27Found you
06:39Ah, do you like the bow?
06:41It's hot.
06:43Um, no, I think I'll leave that to you, Charles.
06:48So, Heidi's a bit reticent about this stock town.
06:54It's six foot long, really good measurement to soak into.
07:05The water is, it must be below 20 degrees.
07:10We had a cold night actually last night.
07:11It was 9 degrees centigrade, 48 Fahrenheit.
07:15So the water cooled down nicely.
07:17But the reason Heidi's reluctant is it's full of mosquito larvae.
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