Notes From a Wellness Retreat
From someone who doesn't practice yoga or meditate.
Highly Enthused is a newsletter, once a podcast, concerning all the best things to consume in life. It’s written twice per month by Sophie McComas-Williams and Sophie Roberts, and today’s dispatch is written by SoMo! This newsletter is free!! Paid subscribers also receive a second newsletter with five extra recs, and a monthly voice note download from the two of us. The Fast Five is often where the gold nuggets lie! Thanks for being here!
The most popular link in SoRo’s Fast Five this month was a pair of crazy affordable ankle boots. See the full post here.
Good evening! How are we all? If half of you are off enjoying a Euro summer, I salute you. Drink a spritz on a terrace somewhere for me. Life has been beautiful lately - full in the best ways. I finally feel on top of my body and brain, which has had a flow-down effect into every crevice of my life and it feels like a balm.
Recommending a retreat feels a bit on the nose in current economic times but don’t worry I’m not recommending you spend 5k on something insane. Billabong sits somewhere between low-key and luxe. It’s tucked along the riverbed just an hour northwest of Sydney and offers day retreats or longer stays. A friend and I booked in for a Friday to Sunday weekend to do something fun and relaxing together (we have four young boys between us and there’s only so much poop chat and couch karate one can take before needing a quick tap out of reality). I wasn’t too sure what to expect, I don’t practice yoga or meditate, but the bath on the balcony of the cabin reeled me in, someone said the food was really good, and I wanted to hang with my friend. “After this yoga class and before our facial, let’s read our books for three hours,” she said, and reader, that’s what we did. Bliss. There’s yoga twice a day, a pool, workshops if you want to attend, and the food IS good. It’s vegetarian, but there are yum herby sauces and nut sprinkles and maple glazed Brussels sprouts, incredible fermented chilli and pasta and it was all delicious. Little pouches of Loco Love chocolate sat waiting on our bedside table, and there was more in the reception (those things are incredible?) and plenty of walks to take outside the property. I’d love to go back in the summer to make the most of the pool. The crowd was 99% women, mostly tired, stressed mums. These two tired mums left absolutely rested and ready. I recommend!
On my road to HEALTH and VITALITY I booked an appointment with a nutritionist, Brooke Kelly (who also subscribes! Hello!) We eat well, but I wanted updated, tailored information for me specifically at this stage of life. What I should add to give me more energy (more protein and variety at breakfast, sourdough instead of the kids’ sandwich bread), and what I should avoid (coffee on an empty stomach). I recommend getting all your bloods done and booking in if you’re feeling meh. But my real recommendation is her Substack, Kitchen Rituals, full of colourful, delicious, nourishing recipes. Sardines for instance, if you can’t figure out how to eat them in a way that doesn’t ick you, there’s a whole newsletter on that!
How’s your drawer divider situation? Mine was an abysmal cheap wooden Ikea mess, until now! A friend Lottie has just launched Compartmento and it’s the perfect example of finding an unassuming little niche - drawer inlays - and filling it with something so excellent you wonder how no one ever thought to fill it before. Born from Lottie’s experience in luxury joinery, every aspect of Compartmento is well considered. Dividers come in many sizes, complete with magnetic dividers you can shift to fit your flotsam. The colours are beautiful, the packaging is giving luxury handbag, and the soft, silicon material is “the same high grade as the best dildos out there,” says Lottie. Enough said. Lottie was sweet enough to interview me for the site, and fill our drawer with the Vide inlay. I chose cream, with blush dividers. A welcome shock of joy every time I open the drawer.
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Rec of the week - podcasts, I’ve fallen SO off the wagon. What are you listening to today? I’d love something fun and something engrossing.
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For paid subscribers, my fast five next week will include an at-home hair gloss that WORKS, a silky pumpkin pasta recipe, wine, a Sichuan chilli oil and the new film camera I’m trialling.
See you later next week for the Fast Five. xx
Packed with goodness this one!
Podcast rec: Love Trapped. If you don’t love it by the end of the second episode, then it won’t be for you. You also don’t need to know anything about the subjects (and maybe it’s better if you don’t)!