Raw vegan hot cross buns? Happy Easter Bunday

So.  Sometimes when I feel low, lost, alone, I take myself back in mind to places where I felt secure and serene.  I know, I know - one should be able to feel secure and serene anywhere - for, really, it makes no difference where one is, does it?  But still...

Yobaba Lounge was such a place.  I'd love to take you there.  It might not suit, of course - we are all different, we all have varying tastes, inclinations, desires.  But, for me, it was a refuge for the mind; a temple of the body; a sanctuary for the soul.   I knew, from the moment I got into Gertrud's campervan at the airport and she started driving to Chalabre, that here was a kindred spirit.  One of my 'tribe'.

Anyhow.  Today I am thinking of Yobaba.  I am wandering its corridors in my mind, trailing my fingers over the wooden bannisters, stretching out on that fabulous bed and snuggling into the zebra-alike throw.  I am curling up in a hammock, with a cat purring under my fingers.  I am giving myself up to the floorboards in savasana surrender in the yoga shala up under the eaves, in the Kether of the chateau.  I am floating, a pale starfish, primordial, on the lake.
If I were there now I might even be walking the labyrinth Gertud has sliced into the lawn...

Are my tastebuds tingling?  Well, I don't usually get too exhilarated about food but for Gertrud's raw alchemy I make an exception.  Can you really make a raw vegan sugar-free hot cross bun?  More to the point, one that tastes good?  Gertrud did.  Follow this link for her recipe.

And, if you want to read more about her house in France and its range of retreats, I wrote a full report for Queen of Retreats - read it here.

Oh, and if you fancy finding out more about my thoughts on the issue of 'home', you could always read my book Spirit of the Home.  Click on the cover for more.