As you'll remember from yesterday some of my concerns about the detox were, will I get bored? What will I do all day? I needn't have worried - some days I couldn't actually fit everything in!! So I thought I'd start by telling you all about what we got up to that kept us so busy :)

First morning I got up for meditation at 8am - I've always wanted to be able to meditate so thought this would be a great chance to learn and more importantly make it a habit. This was a guided meditation which I think is really useful when first starting as it gave us a chance to be with our bodies - one of the mantras of the week is that most of us tend to be in our minds ALL the time so this was a chance to learn to be with our bodies and not let our too busy minds take over - I found this REALLY difficult but I'm still practicing - I guess that's the point of meditation!

Straight after 45 minutes of meditation is a 5 minute massage train - basically everyone stands in a line and massages each other's shoulders and heads, then turn round and repeat - a great ice-breaker but also really invigorating!

Then it was time for our 9am juice so Fiona explained all about our juices for the week and the supplements we were to take with them and then we enjoyed our first juice of the week.

Next up, Fiona - master herbalist and 'mum' for the week - explained how do our colemas (this is the term for a self-administered colonic). Basically it's a gravity fed system where the water just flows in and out, gently cleansing your colon. It's a lot gentler than a colonic as the water flows gently rather than being forced in!

Next on my itinerary was a meeting with Anna - the retreat director - to talk about what I wanted to get out of the week. They 'interview' everyone so they can make sure you are placed with the right therapist(s) throughout the week.

Before we knew it, it was time for 12pm juice so we all gathered together in the sun and had our 'lunch' and then our first lunch-time talk - topics varied through the week on various aspects of health which was a really useful addition, especially for the people to whom eating clean is a new concept.

After this I thought it was time to tackle the colema!! I was really nervous about this and have to say I certainly didn't enjoy the first one but was pleased I'd done it and got the first one out of the way. Little did I know at that point that by Tuesday I would be doing two a day as I became a bit obsessed with seeing what came out!

3pm juice came around really quickly and I then had a full body massage which was lovely! I didn't have the energy for yoga after that so I read in the sun for abit and then it was time for 6pm juice. By this point in the day I was really looking forward to the 8pm broth as I did get a bit tired of the juices as the day goes on.

We all gathered in the communal room for the broth - it was just a plain vegetable broth designed to give us some essential minerals but it tasted amazing after a full day of juices!!!

It was then an early night for everyone.

The next four days passed on a similar routine - juices at 9am, 12pm, 3pm & 6pm with broth at 8pm. Meditation at 8am if you wanted to attend - most of us just rolled out of bed and came to this in our pyjamas - a health talk at 12.30pm, yoga at 4.30pm and in the middle of all of that trying to fit in a colema (or two!). One of the things I loved about the whole thing was the relaxed nature of the retreat - by day 3 most of us were deep into full on detox mode and just wandering around in our pyjamas all day wrapped up in blankets. There was no pressure to do anything at all - you could do as little or as much as you liked.

I'll be back tomorrow with the final instalment of my detox journey, answering questions such as * did it 'change my life'?  * what was the point of the colemas? * what does it feel like to really, deeply detox? * what did I get out of the experience?

Fran x