What a lovely festival this weekend! Elder Stubbs have a beautiful allotment site and people recovering from mental illnesses go there for gardening and other therapy.

The festival was all about wellness and reducing the stigma around mental illness.

Yoga Quota did a couple of workshops! I went through 4 parts of yoga:

Asana (physical poses which help you because of classic exercise endorphin reasons)

Pranayama - breath work which when you work in conjunction with the asana can really chill you out.

Concentration- which we practiced through some balances- you focus so much, all the worries just slip away for a luxury couple of minutes!

Meditation- we did some simple meditation through Savasana the last pose in yoga focussing on your breath.

I met some lovely people interested in yoga for many reasons from the need to relax to the need I recover from cycling!!

Thanks for having me Elder Stubbs!

I MUST recommend this treatment (and no I do not get product placement payments...!)

Lush the shop of bath bomb and animal rights fame has set up a spa. And what a gorgeous spa. The best I have ever been to (and as I have gone through the phase when pretty much every other weekend was a hen weekend at a spa I know!) They are in Bath, London and other biggish cities.

The treatment is called a sound bath and I was intrigued because sound is a powerful tool in yoga. The syllabul/sound Om is meant to have powerful effects on you. It's the first sound in creation. Vibrations are key in physics and Music. My singing bowl from Bhutan (see previous blog) has vibrations in 4 pitches and helps you meditate. So I'm all for sound baths!

This treatment involves a facial and head massage (go for that alone) ear candles (which is like listening to a camp fire, just really close in!) tuning forks at different pitches vibrating against your stirnum and head so you literally feel the sound, and gorgeous backing music of gongs, bird song and cow bells. It was such a treat for the ears you will never have experienced something so all engrossing! Do try it!

The neatest thing out side of the treatment was the kookie use of dry ice and Alice in Wonderland style 'eat me' 'drink me' treats before and after the treatment. I won't explain you just have to try!

Plug over!!!

Importantly it was my Christmas present from the lovely people of Lush Oxord James and Tilly. Thank you so much, both.

By the way I meant to go to acupuncture in Oxford which would give you all as blog followers and yoga quota students a discount- but I chickened out due to the pregnancy and will do it in the New Year.

Namaste- or I should say Om?