I'm going away for a few days, so I'm going to post up my ashram series, one per day - would love to hear from you whether you think they may find a home somewhere...

I’ve been up since 3.30 a.m. Car from my parents’ house in Rome to the Ryanair bus. Bus to Ciampino airport. Lunch sandwiches demolished at 5 a.m. Plane to Beauvais, outside Paris. Bus to a metro station somewhere in Paris. Metro to Gare d’Austerlitz - no, ticket machine won’t take Visa and the queue at the ticket office is too long.

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Abandon metro idea. Taxi to Gare d’Austerlitz. Arc de Triomphe and Champs Elysées looking lovely in the sunshine. Ticket machine at the station won’t take Visa. Train leaving very soon. Ticket office queue long. Get it at last. No time to buy a sandwich. No time to find a toilet.

As I leap onto the train an official on the platform asks me “Have you composté your ticket?” I leap off again.

Composté? What on earth is composté? He grabs it, scribbles on it, and hands it back to me.

I find a compartment – hey, I haven’t been in a train with compartments for ages. The train leaves and I go off to find a toilet. Every one in the three wagons behind and the three in front is locked. I look for somewhere to buy some food. No luck. So I settle down to watch the ladies in my compartment one by one take out their fresh baguette sandwiches and munch them. It’s now 2 p.m.

An hour later I step out of the train at the clean, quiet, suburban station of Les Aubrais, just outside Orléans. Clean-looking Portaloo. But you need exactly 30 cents to open the door, and I don’t have it. Outside there is a neat line of taxis. No sign of buses. I ask a taxi driver where I can get a bus to Neuville au Bois.

“Désolé, madame, there are no buses to Neuville. Why do you want to go there, anyway?”

“I’m going to the Chateau de Sivananda.”

“Ah, the ashram. Those people always tell their guests there’s a bus. The chateau is way beyond Neuville anyway, in the forest. But I can take you. It’s less than half an hour.” He smiles. His cab looks inviting. I jump in. We drive through fields of yellow rapeseed flowers. Humming “Fields of Gold”, I start wondering about the days ahead. This idea to go and do a week of intensive yoga was maybe a bit too impulsive. What if I can’t handle it? We leave the yellow fields and drive into a forest. Suddenly it’s dark.

“Monsieur, you’ve taken people to the chateau before?”

“Oh yes, English, German, Swiss, they come from all over. Mostly a lot younger than you.”

“What’s the chateau like?”

“Couldn’t tell you. They keep themselves to themselves.”

“Do you think it’s a sect?”

“Not sure, really. One of them comes to shop in Les Aubrais – buys odd stuff. Wears strange clothes.”

I feel uneasy.

“Do you think they might kidnap me?” I ask, half-joking.

“Don’t think so. Why are you going there, anyway?”

“I’m going to do a stress management course. Stress management through yoga. Could I have your card? That way I can call you if it doesn’t work out.”

“Sure. I’ll come. Though I must say I’ve never been called to bring people back from there. Stress management, you said?”

My palms are sweaty. My bladder is bursting. My legs are shaking. My heart is pumping. My shoulders and neck are tense. My mind is racing. Yes, stress management.

After half an hour we come out of the forest into the bright light and drive down a tree-lined avenue to a converted farmhouse. There are big expanses of lawn bordered with colourful flower beds, and huge trees beyond. The only sound is birdsong. A cacophony of different tunes. It’s almost deafening. I get out. The taxi driver hands me his card and my bag. I look around. No one in sight. Not a soul. The taxi drives away. Oh no. He’s never brought anyone back from here.

I look around again. The flowers, the grass, the trees, the birds, the sunshine. Maybe it’s not such a bad place not to be brought back from.