My day

NOELEEN TYRRELL -Ard Nahoo retreat, Co. Leitrim

ON A RETREAT day I get up at 7am, make a decaf coffee and sit in silence for as long as I can before I start the yoga class at 8am. When class is over I make smoothies for my guests and then go get my own breakfast. At the moment I’m into chopped bananas, oranges, pears and walnuts smothered in Udo’s Oil and a dollop of natural yogurt. It’s delicious.

At around 10.30am I will do some more work with guests. I practice reflexology – an in-depth massage of the feet – and cranial sacral therapy which is great for all sorts of head, neck, back and eye problems.

Then I’ll start prepping the guests’ lunch. Because it’s a detox retreat it will be raw food and juice, but prepared in the most amazing way. You can’t just give someone a limp lettuce leaf.

The thing about raw food is that it actually takes an awful lot of effort to make it look and taste so good, so it takes ages.

There’ll usually be a pot of soup on the go somewhere so I’ll have some of that or whatever’s left over for my own lunch.

In the afternoon I run a workshop on raw food, to show guests how to prepare these meals themselves at home, and to talk to them about the benefits of raw food.

After that they all go off on a guided walk and it feels the same as it does when you’re a parent and the kids have all gone up to bed – that lovely sense of quietness. At that stage I’ll probably nip out to pick my kids up from school.

Most of our clientele is female. The current group is unusual in that they are all in their early 30s and super fit and health conscious. These guys are very into nutrition.

Usually our guests are the kind of people who want to be fit and healthy but who are just too stressed out or exhausted from their daily lives to do it. They use the retreat as a spring board to change.

We also get a number of overweight people who want to change their lives and their eating habits.

Lunch is our most substantial meal here so dinner is a smaller affair, perhaps soup. After dinner we do a 30- to 60-minute meditation.

At the very end we teach them how to make raw chocolate, which is just gorgeous and full of antioxidants. They then get a few squares as a goodbye gift before they go on their merry way. If they’ve been eco-warriors and travelled on public transport we give them an extra gift such as a CD.

Once everyone is gone I’ll come back to the house and collapse, going to bed at the same time as the kids, maybe 9.30pm. It’s exhausting but it’s also very fulfilling.

Ard Nahoo Health Farm, Dromahair, Co Leitrim ardnahoo.com