As the taxi approached the remote Lake District house where I’d be spending a week doing a silent Buddhist retreat, a thought struck me with Zen-like clarity.

You must be out of your tiny mind.

The theme of the retreat was “appreciate your life” and it involved spending most of the day in silence: rising at 5.40am to start zazen (meditating) and not finishing until 8am; eating a silent breakfast with the other 20 people participating in this lunacy. After breakfast, spending 45 minutes washing up, then 90 minutes doing samu (work): chopping, shredding and peeling vegetables as preparation for the rest of the day’s meals.