Perhaps it was right at the beginning, when we sat beneath the wisteria-covered arbour, huddled under blankets (summer took so long to come this year) and I realised that people would keep on writing long after I suggested we regroup. Or maybe it was later, when the sun broke through the clouds and we learned the ancient folklore of yarrow and you could just see how people’s minds were opening up, how they were looking at things in ways they really hadn’t before. And by the time we got to drinks on the terrace and dinner at the long, happily worn table in the kitchen, the clatter of the chefs working behind us and a seemingly endless delivery of sumptuous, easy, comforting food placed in front of us, I knew that it had arrived: the feeling of savouring in person, more fulsome and headier than I could have imagined.

I’m a person who likes to plan; I make lists and like to double-check things. And so when it was suggested that we do a practice run of the first ever savour retreat, this struck me as a very good idea indeed.

This was a few months ago now, in those first sluggish days of summer, and I was taking a break from writing for savour. But I vowed that I would when I felt good and ready, because here was something that felt sparking and kinetic.

There, among wildflower fields in the open space of the New Forest, I asked a group of people to try something new - to take a day out of their schedules and dedicate it to savouring. We ate delicious food, we gathered in beautiful rooms and we learned about one another’s lives. But for me, the essence of the day was distilled at certain sweet, surprising moments. In the morning I explained the origin of savouring and what it meant in my life, and we all did some writing together. Hours later, we gathered together in the glasshouse to think about what we’d enjoyed that day through a lens of savouring. It was so remarkable to see this concept I’d been brewing over for a few years, largely alone at a desk with a keyboard, fizz into life.

People explained that they’d learned to look more closely, that they had found a stillness and an appreciation for parts of the outdoor world that they hadn’t thought about before, that they would take some of this new lens home and start looking at all the familiar things through it, the way the light falls on the kitchen worktop or the way they liked to keep certain books next to their bed.

I came away from this little dry run full of ideas and little tweaks and big new thoughts about how to do things, all of which made me excited for November, when the first savour retreat will take place at Lime Wood in the New Forest. There are still a handful of places left, and I’d love for you to join, to savour and to make space - find the details here. Until then, a note on a delicious thing in life: eating cherries and drinking tea by the fire after dinner, sharing good stories and feeling the rare and good bubble of new friendship emerge.