The Unwellness Retreat

From 3pm — Check In. Lie Down. Achieve Nothing. Arrive at your Cambridge hotel and settle into your own room. No sharing with someone who sets a sunrise alarm to “catch the energy”. Your Unwellness Survival Kit includes salt & vinegar crisps, chocolate, an eye mask and earplugs. Other retreats give you Himalayan salt lamps. We’ve put ours on potatoes.

5pm — Opening Circle: “You’re Probably Fine.” Meet your Tipple Tour hosts and your fellow retreaters. Introduce yourself and name one thing you refuse to optimise this weekend. Nobody needs your job title, especially you. Compulsory hugs have been replaced with a spiritually sufficient nod.

6pm — Underground Mindfulness at an English winery. Enjoy an urban winery tasting among the tanks and barrels. Discover small-batch English wines, meet the person making them and briefly forget your email password. Other retreats encourage you to get grounded. We’ve taken that literally.

7.45pm — The Anti-Cleanse Welcome Dinner. Settle down to a proper three-course dinner, with bread proudly visible on the table. Get to know everyone without being asked where you see yourself in five years. Currently, you’re hoping to see a pudding menu. Afterwards, join your hosts with a historic pub crawl or head back to bed; both count as listening to your body.

8–10am — Breakfast Without a Performance Review. Enjoy coffee, tea and an unhurried hotel breakfast. Nobody will weigh your toast or ask whether your sausage aligns with your intentions. Your smartwatch may describe this as inactivity. We describe it as included.

10.30am — Gentle Cardio Between Interesting Buildings. Explore Cambridge on a relaxed stroll with stories, photo stops and regular opportunities to stand still. Admire centuries of academic achievement while feeling quietly pleased that nobody has set you any homework. Finish around Mill Road, ready for an education with considerably more hops.

12–2pm — Brewery Aromatherapy & Therapeutic Pizza. Visit a local brewery for an introduction and guided beer tasting. Explore hops, malt and fermentation with someone who understands them, then demonstrate your newly acquired expertise by pointing and saying “that one”. Pizza follows, helping you establish some healthy boundaries between yourself and anyone requesting the last slice.

2–5pm — Choose Your Own Lack of Improvement. Spend the afternoon napping, browsing bookshops or sitting in a pub without turning it into content. Nobody will ask whether you used the time productively. Should you accidentally have a useful thought, keep it to yourself until Monday.

3–5pm — Botanical Self-Discovery at a gin laboratory. Explore individual botanicals and blend your own gin under expert guidance. Some people leave retreats with a vision board; you could leave with a bottle labelled “I’m Working on My Spirit.”

6.30pm — The Blind Crisp Sommelier Championships. Take your place before anonymous bowls and spectacularly unnecessary tasting sheets. Identify the flavour, assess the crunch and describe the finish with the confidence of someone judging an international wine competition. An award awaits the most gloriously overblown description. “Cheesy” will require further development.

7.30pm — Comfort-Food Communion. Reunite for another three-course pub dinner and compare your afternoon achievements. One guest has created a bespoke gin; another has slept for two hours. We celebrate both equally, especially if neither insists on giving a presentation.

9.15pm — Inner Child, Adult Drinks. Join a cocktail masterclass where playful drinks and unusual glasses provide the evening’s final research opportunity. Practise being fully present when your cocktail arrives decorated with a shark.

9–10am — Breakfast & Gentle Reassembly. Enjoy breakfast, coffee and the reassuring knowledge that nobody is about to ring a gong. Discuss yesterday’s discoveries or quietly negotiate with a piece of toast.

10.30am — check out and leave your bags at our arranged storage point; emotional baggage remains your responsibility.

11am — The Boozy Punt: Effortlessly Going Somewhere. Settle into a private chauffeured punt for a leisurely journey along Cambridge’s college Backs with fizz. Admire the architecture while somebody else handles propulsion. Release your need to control everything: a person with a pole is handling it and they’ve done this considerably more often than you.

12.30pm — Root Work & the Closing Roast. At our lunch venue, a short tasting featuring locally produced Vodka introduces a Cambridgeshire spirit made using East Anglian sugar beet and Yorkshire spring water. Someone has turned a root vegetable into vodka, finally giving us a transformation story we can get behind. A proper Sunday roast follows, alongside our deeply unofficial graduation ceremony and a certificate confirming that you successfully attended a weekend without becoming a better version of yourself.

3pm — Released Back into Society. Collect your bags, exchange numbers and head home with new acquaintances, favourite drinks and potentially strong opinions about crisps. There’s no action plan, subscription to cancel or equipment to buy. Your current personality has already been approved.