Day 2 - Tuesday

Dear DD,

Waking feeling surprisingly fresh and energised, we all bobbed down to the kitchen for our first intake of the day: hot water and lemon. Judy doesn't deal with our food, this is Sue's department. Sue is a bizarre looking lady who has the bottom half of a wannabe snowboarder (Merrell trainers, big combat trousers, canvass belt), the top half of a dinner lady (white t shirt, short apron) and the hair of a lesbian club door lady (very short, died white, slicked into a side parting). All this combined with the fact that she’s 72 makes Sue a funny one to watch.

One lemon later we all headed to the gym to meet Matt the trainer, who kicked things off with what is to become a standard detox joke ("How was your breakfast? What was it, full English?") Boom boom. He put dumbbells in our hands and took us all off for a power walk round the village. The ONLY two saving graces here were that it was early in the morning so not many people were up, and that the schools were on holidays so the kids weren't on buses going past, as the sight of this little collection of detoxers all lycra'd up, swinging dumbbells left and right, sweating out their carrot juices would have been too much for many people to take.

One lady in our group, Maureen (who's told her Husband she's gone to a Bridge club for a week - "He's not in to all this new age stuff") turned back early in the walk as she had a sore eye, and on her way home got to chatting to the neighbour of the farm where we're staying. Expecting the neighbour to be all friendly and supportive, Maureen soon found that Detoxers are not entirely welcome in Little Hambdon. It would appear that the Detox Farm owners have invested a lot of time and money on installing a bio composing organic sewage system, which has not only caused a disruption to the neighbours through the building process, but leaves a lingering smell of shit all up Dovecote Lane, as far as The Old Post Office. Especially as, Maureen rather embarrassingly reported back, most people who stay on the farm "tend to shit their guts out" thus creating more than your average resident of the village.

I for one shat my guts out today at noon during my first colonic of the week. I appeared to be a bit of a mystery to the colonic hydro therapist (Judy again) as I had to list my exact intake of food and liquid for the last 96 hours. Those of you with me for some of the last 96 hours know exactly what I put in to my body (pints, pizzas and p… well, you know) and know exactly why I could not tell that to Judy. She therefore found it most odd and somewhat concerning that virtually nothing of what I said had gone in to me was coming out.

One stone lighter I went back over to the gym to find Mum upside down on the inversion board. You can't really chat much when your mum is hanging like a bat so I left her to it and went for my reflexology, which was lovely and so relaxing that I drifted off almost instantly. A down side of detoxing is wind, and the lack of control you have over passing it. This sorry reminder hit me mid reflexology, and was not only enough to wake me but was enough for Hayley the reflexologist to do a small, polite 'Oops! One too many carrot juices" comment, which was a bit embarrassing to say the least.

From Reflexology to Chinese Cupping which is a strange treatment where hot glass jam jar type things are placed on your back. The heat and the air tight container create a pressure which "gently draw the toxins away from your spine and out through the skin". It felt more like a hot wheeled tractor was driving over me, and I now look like someone has been playing hopscotch on my back.

The evening meal of broth was to follow. This time I got to pad it out with radish sprouts and cress roots. Group morale is obviously dwindling as more people feel the pain of no food - we pretty much ate in silence, and no one laughed except me when mum said "cheer up everybody, we are on holiday!". Judy, sensing the lack in spirit, suggested a group quiz night in the lounge. So, off we trotted and split up into two teams. I was with the mother of six, Diana, (who incidentally turns out to be a well known Children's advice author, with several books published and a former contributor to Woman's Hour) the boring maths teacher and my favourite discoing step granny, Gail. Of the 35 questions I knew about four, the maths teacher knew five, Gail about six, but Diana the mother cum writer knew loads. When we came to marking however, it turned out that she knew loads... of the wrong answers. She was NOT happy about this, and weirdly and awkwardly turned everything highly competitive. Maybe it was the lack of food, maybe it's just her, but when she turned on Judy for giving the other team a point for answering 'Whale' when it should have been 'Blue Whale' no one quite knew where to look.

With a slight atmosphere in the air, our group of ten all went to bed, and at 8pm it couldn't have come sooner. Day two and the tensions are mounting, which perhaps is why we have both Yoga and Meditation tomorrow.

11 juices and three broths to go...

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