Detoxing

I seem to use this term so freely to describe things. I'm quite aware that a physical or emotional detox requires more than going away to the country for a week but forgive my colloquialisms as I can't think of anything else to say.

Last Tuesday I got the train down to Bedfordshire, where I stayed with my auntie and her partner. Most people my age think that the countryside is boring but I honestly can't understand why. I love ordering take aways, going to nightclubs and parties and meeting my friends in coffee shops to talk about 50 Shades of Grey but I equally love spending entire days lying in the sun reading, mooching around charity shops and eating food that hasn't been swimming in grease from it's conception, and I can't understand how anybody could find all that relaxation boring.

While I was there I went to a pilates class, which wasn't half as easy as I'd imagined it to be but was lovely and slow, and allowed me to think of nothing other than the physical strain on my muscles rather than the millions of thoughts that usually run through my mind at once, drank gallons of green tea, and went for walks in the countryside, exploring the villages and fields nearby. One particularly sunny day I walked and walked for ages, before finding a bench at the edge of a field, with wild flowers and grass almost as long as my legs. I sat on it and put one headphone in, half listening to Xavier Rudd and half listening to (literally) the bees and the birds all around me.

I read loads of books, finishing the 50 Shades trilogy, re-reading The Secret and The Power by Rhonda Byrne, a wonderful book about Italy called The Food of Love, and another entitled The Italian Wedding, as well as Lee Strobel's The Case for a Creator, which I've been meaning to read since I got it at Christmas but have never got round to. I filled an entire notebook with what are going to be blog entries when I've typed them up, went to a couple of restaurants with my family, went to the cinema and watched many a DVD over wine, hummus and olives, including Law Abiding Citizen, A Beautiful Mind and Under the Tuscan Sun.

I went to the Emmaus centre (http://www.emmaus.org.uk/) which is SUCH a worthwhile charity, and had a beautiful meal there, bought about ten books, a dress, two huge mirrors, a jewellery box and an absolutely stunning white French-style dresser with pretty little drawers and three elaborate mirrors (a steal at £25, it was worth far more), all for my new bedroom in Salford, the money all going to Emmaus' amazing cause, keeping homeless people and addicts off the streets and in work. I met men with such social difficulties that have stemmed from the way they've been shunned by society for so long that they couldn't look me in the eyes, a women with track marks in the crooks of her elbows, a man with a handful of teeth and the most horrendous self-harm scars, and a man with a face so red from alcohol abuse it was hard not to stare. All of them have had to endure the worst kind of suffering and ill-treatment, but now, thanks to Abbe Pierre, the founder of the charity, they have a roof over their heads, they're skill-building and learning how to not only serve as waiters but also are trained in the arts of carpentry and the like, but they also have pride and self-respect, because for the first time in probably a long time, they're doing something for themselves and for other people. Honest labour. You only have to step inside to feel the calm atmosphere, and know that you are in the presence of people who are truly grateful to have been given a second chance in life. It's so eye opening.

There are Emmaus centres all over the country. Some are just furniture shops, like the one on Seaford Road in Salford, some are cafes and some are huge centres like the Carlton one that I went to, with a furniture showroom, boutique, cafe and library. If you can I really do suggest you go there and buy a cake and a cup of tea, or go and have a mooch round the shops because it is such a worthwhile cause. I'm welling up as I write this!

It might not sound like the most exciting week but I feel so much calmer and at peace than I did before I went. I've eaten well, slept well, had some intelligent conversation, exercised, read, written, it's been lovely :)