Weekend break: Stepping back in time at yoga and sleep retreat in Lisnavagh House
I OPEN my eyes into darkness. There’s isn’t a chink of light.
As I slowly register the heavy curtains and pelmet that are keeping the light at bay, I sink back into the double bed.
It’s the kind of bed that envelops you. I beam as I lie in the stillness.
Not only have I had a great night’s sleep but I’m alone, it’s me time for the weekend at a yoga/sleep retreat at the 19th century Lisnavagh House in Co Carlow.
The house has invited me into a Jane Austen or Charlotte Bronte novel.
As I pull back the drapes in the ‘Butterfly room’ and gaze through sash windows at the sprawling estate that surrounds the house, I can hear hooves thundering over the lawn as though some D’Arcy type creature is paying ‘Mama’ an early morning visit.
I’ve found myself playing make believe since I’ve arrived: imagining ringing the bell for my lady maid or that I’m just home from ‘school’ for the summer as I pull out a chair to sit down at a Victorian mahogany dressing table to clean my skin and daydream.
I’m one of 12, for some reason all women, here for the weekend.
The majority, like me, wrestle periodically with insomnia and want to see if days of hatha yoga, good food, and chilling without screens of any type will reap benefit.
One other guest, a teacher believe it or not, manages to survive on as little as two hours sleep a night while another, a junior doctor, has had her sleep pattern near firebombed by 72 hour shifts.
Two more of the guests, sisters in law, have soldiered through cancer and the death of a spouse in recent years. This is their gift to themselves.
Most of the other guests had arrived on Friday afternoon and had already had two hours of yoga at the Garden wing, a barn-style building with French windows where classes take place.
I, of course unable to get out of the office on time, couldn’t manage this and had burst in on dinner, a bottle of red tucked under my arm (Emily Bunbury who runs the retreats doesn’t forbid alcohol but encourages guests to try the weekend without vino or at least, to drink less).
While all for balancing my mind, body and spirit, I had quickly decided that a weekend without a glass or two of wine was just sanctimonious misery and would run contrary to the purpose of the weekend.
I wasn’t alone and within seconds I was chinking glasses with other guests as we tucked into lemon and aubergine risotto and Chinese leaves with radishes.
The atmosphere was chilled and warm as everyone said they were levelled by the earlier yoga.
Next morning after a light breakfast, classes under Canadian Pam Butler, who has been teaching yoga for nearly 20 years, began again.
We all tiptoed into the garden room in our bare feet and for the following two hours moved slowly through asanas and vinyasas to the sound of Pam’s soothing tones.
Yoga and Sleep caters for all levels of yoga practice and there were some in our group who were clearly experienced.
Balancing this can be difficult as the more experienced might want to go deeper into their practice while beginners like me invariably had to be corrected a lot.
Pam encouraged me to trust my body to go deeper into poses and when it got to shavasana, the relaxation and visualisation section at the close of class, I dozed off.
Lunch was glorious: we were all starving and it was like sitting down to an Avoca banquet: roasted tomato and chickpea soup, walnut pate, beetroot hummus, roasted cashew nut, mango and beansprout salad, Greek-style salad and roasted sweet potatoes, all prepared by Emily who runs the course and Lisnavagh with her husband William McClintock-Bunbury of Bunbury Boards.
When we had booked in for the course, we had been offered a series of optional additional beauty treatments for Saturday afternoon (therapists come to the house from outside to do Swedish, aromatherapy massage, and Dermologica facials).
I was delighted I had declined as a few free hours meant that I could run a bath in my bathroom; twice the size of my bedroom at home.
Carpeted and with outsized mirrors, lavish drapes, antique bathware and mahogany chests stacked with books and New Yorkers from the 1940s, it was a space made for the decadent idling away of hours.
There wasn’t yoga again until early evening so it was from the bubble bath to the library.
The Lisnavagh library is the cosiest room you can imagine, a marble fireplace, two big sofas, and reading lamps galore are in the centre of a room wallpapered with shelves of hardbacks and oil portraits of the McClintock Bunbury family.
I curled up on the chair with my novel and fell sound asleep.
When I was woken up, I really felt like I didn’t need any more yoga as I was so chilled but off we returned barefoot to the Garden Wing for two more hours of meditation, gentle asana, relaxation and visualisation.
Auto-suggestive relaxation is taught to give you a useful technique — Pam took lots of questions from guests about different poses and how they can help with health problems and I just zoned out.
Our Saturday supper of Swiss chard, chickpea and tamarind stew served with quinoa and potato and dill salad was devoured, as was chocolate mousse with baby macaroons.
Three and a half hours of yoga a day gives you a bear’s appetite and while there was lots of fun around the table after dinner, bed beckoned.
This, after all, is why we were here.
We had yoga again after a light muesli breakfast on Sunday morning, incorporating many of the poses we had practiced over the two previous days.
The sun streamed in the window as we moved slowly from pose to pose and as we lay in savasana, we could hear birds singing in the trees and the very lucky Bunbury children playing outside.
Some of the group had been up before breakfast and had walked around some of the 600-acre estate that surrounds the big house.
Myself and another guest pulled on our wellies before brunch and took off to explore the extensive wood and parkland that makes up the estate.
Our last meal together was Sunday brunch with Indian-style Roopas eggs, carrot and sesame seed salad and a green a green and melon salad.
Like all the food all weekend, it was prepared and served by Ally Bunbury and had a strong emphasis on wellness.
We weren’t due to check out until 3pm that afternoon and I couldn’t resist curling up in the library again to read and have a quick snooze.
I woke with a jolt at about 3.10pm.
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