Beauty

Yoga, meditation and great food make this Mini Urban Retreat feel like a holiday

Feel revived after a Mini Urban Retreat in Edinburgh

The treatment

A Mini Urban Retreat with yogi Sarah Mccaffer of Yoga Beet, £45 for four hours.

Why go?

For all the Rs – resetting, rejuvenating and restoring – this retreat packs loads of spiritual and edible nourishment into a neat four hour package.

Our spy says

First of all, wow, the venue for this retreat is something else.

This session is held at TB3 (www. tb3edinburgh.com) – a huge warehouse apartment in Leith’s Timberbush.

It has a long dining table, loads of floor space (if I lived here, I’d buy roller skates) and is flooded with natural light.

I’m moving in. Before that, and once we’ve quaffed some of Sarah’s lovely elderflower cordial, it’s time for a Vinyasa Flow session.

This lasts just over 90 minutes, and is challenging in parts. There’s a mixture of abilities and ages here, but everyone give the moves a shot (apart from me, who fails at the headstand section at the end, and does dolphin pose instead).

After breathing – pranayama – exercises, we move through warrior poses, side planks, some balance, and a few poses that I haven’t tried before, such as the awakening lotus, and a rather tricky side twist.

Feeling stretched and energised, it’s time for lunch – an unexpected bounty.

Sarah must have been cooking all night. There is garlicky hummus topped with caramelised onions, baba ganoush sprinkled with pomegranate seeds, crudites, salads featuring watermelon, crispbreads covered in poppy seeds, a nutty frittata (the only thing not gluten free), avocado, radishes, handfuls of coriander, chia seeds, nectarine, butternut squash .....

We eat until we’re nearly popping, and there’s still a healthy take on chocolate mousse to come, which is made with avocado, coconut nectar, and cocoa nibs, among other things, and topped with strawberries and pistachios. I’d say the ticket price for this retreat is justified by the amazing feast alone.

The final part of the day involves a relaxing session of about 30 minutes of yin and meditation. We collapse onto our mats and hold easy moves, like butterfly or child’s pose, for longer, in order to stretch the fascia and go deeper than superficial muscle.

Then, while soothing music plays on the stereo, Sarah talks us through some meditation. We imagine tracing round our prone bodies, and feeling where they touch the mats, before slowly coming round.

The results

I sleep so well that night, and still feel mellow the next day. Apart from the immediate positive effects, I also found the retreat inspiring – to be with a nice bunch of people, in an amazing venue, and eat exciting food. It’s like I’ve had a week’s holiday. n

A Mini Urban Retreat with yogi Sarah Mccaffer of Yoga Beet (www.yogabeet. co.uk, sarah@yogabeet.co.uk). The next retreat is 25 November, 10am2pm. She’s also holding a longer residential retreat, 25-29 October, Yang, Yin and Vegetables with Ecoyoga in Ford, Argyll, (£595, fully catered including cooking lessons, see www.ecoyoga.org).