‘We are insanely competitive’: Sarah Vine goes on a trip to a famous detox retreat in Turkey with two of her best friends

Sarah Vine

I’ve always felt my friend Santa was too good to be true. Tall, blonde, beautiful, slim, elegant, impeccably connected. A bestselling author whose books have sold over six million copies worldwide. Surely there has to be something wrong with her.

Well, I’m delighted to say she’s not perfect, after all. In fact, she is the reason I’m sitting in the pouring rain drinking watery broth, waiting for some equally watery juice to arrive so I can down another handful of dust in supplement form, before going to sleep at toddler-o-clock out of sheer boredom and hunger. This is her fault. I smile sweetly across the table at her.

My other friend Imogen – also blonde, beautiful, slim, bestselling author (note to self: must choose less glamorous/successful friends) – isn’t letting on but I’m sure she secretly agrees with me. She’s pretending not to miss the fags and vodka, but I know her too well.

Santa and Imogen are two of my dearest friends. Imogen and I have been muckers since the early 90s, when she was the rave correspondent for the Independent (yes, really). I met Santa through my ex-husband, Michael Gove, who is great friends with her husband, the historian Simon Sebag Montefiore. The two of them are like night and day: one impeccably clean-living, the other… well, Imogen.

We do this thing called ‘sofa’. It all started years ago, when Imogen and I were neighbours and both our husbands were out all the time in the evenings (hers is a TV producer, a profession that’s even worse for the soul than politics). We used to take turns flopping on each other’s sofas, wine glasses at our elbows, the kids in bed, gossiping, setting the world to rights. At some point over the past two decades, Santa was initiated into the coven, and now we meet at least twice a month.

This is next-level ‘sofa’, our first holiday together. The three of us in this slightly surreal location surrounded by stray cats and smiling but inscrutable staff feels all very White Lotus, a tad witchy.

I sigh and steal another pinch of forbidden salt from behind the broth counter. It’s my main source of joy right now. Both Imogen and Santa are alumni of the College of Psychic Studies (Santa’s latest novels are about a time-travelling psychic; Imogen’s, The Witches of St Petersburg, is about Russia and the court of the Romanovs).

I contemplate drawing a circle with it and asking them to open up a portal to another dimension, preferably one containing a large steak. The only thing to look forward to is a small bag of white powder to be ingested before bed. The clinic doctor says it should get things moving. Nothing to get excited about. It’s only magnesium salts.

We are at The LifeCo in Bodrum, Turkey, legendary detox/wellness/weight-loss mecca. It’s marketed as the cool equivalent of the Mayr clinic. Kate Moss comes here so it must be true. Where the Mayr is all white coats and stern Austrians, this is sound baths and bikinis. There are oms on the walls and affirmations up the stairs. Santa goes twice a year, which probably explains why she looks like a goddess.

I don’t love it. The rooms are fine but nothing special. There is a bit of a problem with the drains (although, to be fair, the rain has been torrential). There is a beach within walking distance, but it’s low season so everything’s closed. Nonetheless, the place is packed. One woman, a Turkish jewellery designer, has been here for 21 days. Twenty-one days. She cries nightly into her phone.

It’s blissful spending a week with two dear friends. I would go anywhere with these two. If their husbands would let me, I’d move in with them. I have this fantasy that, when we’re all old, we could live together in an old lady commune (annoyingly, they both remain happily married).

Santa has brought her tarot cards so we spend our fasting evenings divining our fortunes and gossiping. During the day we write. We meet for juice and pool, weather permitting, which mostly it doesn’t. Even on a calorie deficit, we are insanely competitive. Everyone pretends it’s not about weight loss (detox, reset, yadda yadda), but of course it’s about weight loss. In that respect, Imogen is winning hands down. The rate of shrinkage is alarming. Then I catch her doing 50 lengths of the pool. Sneaky. Maybe that’s why she insists on writing in her room: she’s probably doing secret sit-ups. Santa looked perfect to begin with, of course.

I remain unchanged. In fact, around day five I actually go up half a kilo. I am the only person I know who can put on weight after not eating for a week. Maybe I should just stick to ‘sofa’.

Santa Montefiore

‘I feel left out already’ – that was a text from Imogen when Sarah and I cruised into Gatwick’s Sofitel hotel the night before our departure to Bodrum, leaving Imogen to join us the following dawn for the hideously early Easyjet flight. ‘This is just like The White Lotus,’ said Sarah, enjoying her last glass of wine before a week of fasting. When Imogen turned up at the gate she looked like a sexy pirate the morning after a rave: tousled blonde hair, a vodka sheen in her eyes, the whiff of a cigarette about her lips, and a raffish smile – I sensed the week was going to be a challenge.

I should be given the keys to The LifeCo because I’ve been so many times. I always lose five kilos, love the juices, the pills, the yoga, the pampering, even the bland broth you’re allowed to drink in unlimited amounts. But it became clear on day one that Imogen and Sarah were not going to be so easily pleased. Sarah opted out of being weighed. She sat like a queen with her embroidery, refusing to drink the liver-flush juice and rebelliously squirrelling away her pills. But I wasn’t fooled. When she discovered, halfway through the week, that she wasn’t losing any weight, she gave up on the juicing and opted to eat vegetables instead.

Imogen staggered into yoga and put her mat at the back. I wanted to be at the front because the teacher has become a friend – and he’s also easy on the eye. I could hear her raspy breathing as she struggled with the hangover she had brought with her from London. She gagged on the pomegranate juice, felt as raw as a peeled potato after the hammam – and then there was the cat.

The first night I left my bedroom door open and was awoken by something furry against my leg. It wasn’t Sarah or Imogen but an adorable ginger cat, who became my daemon. Imogen can’t bear cats. ‘Sweet Jesus, how are we friends?’ she texted upon receipt of my tenth cat video. So I left Sarah to her tapestry, Imogen to her liver flush (which she urgently needed), and dived under the duvet with the cat.

Imogen Edwards-Jones

Frankly, it started before Gatwick. The text messages, the plans, the ‘totes hilare’ photos of the limo with a swanky golden interior that picked them up. Then they stayed the night together in the Sofitel, tucking into a Chinese, sharing a bottle of red, having a little giggle most certainly at my expense. Even when I arrived at the airport some 20 hours later to find them drinking coffee in Pret, looking at their phones, popping little bits of melon down their pie-holes, they ignored me.

‘Pull up a chair,’ one of them said with a wave of a finger.

‘It looks like a queue for coffee,’ said the other. ‘You’d better hurry up as they’ve called our gate.’

What is the old adage? Two’s company and three’s quite clearly White Lotus. And I’m the unpopular one who drinks too much and everyone pities.

Even as I sat at the back of the plane, surrounded by families with children who watched Peppa Pig at full volume, I wondered about my life choices. Why hadn’t I got speedy boarding, why wasn’t I at the front, and why had I agreed to do a liquid detox at The LifeCo? It was all Santa’s fault. She’s so gorgeous and charming, you’d run naked up Kensington High Street if she suggested it. Sarah is equally divine and a dear friend, so what was not to love?

Quite a lot, apparently! Not The LifeCo. The LifeCo was great and the detox was super-efficient. I have done a few before when I was struggling with IVF. I used to spend weeks at the Mayr clinic eating nothing but potatoes and going to the lavatory a lot! So The LifeCo was a breeze, although the endless juices did become miserable and the pomegranate made me sick; I ended up with a tongue the colour and thickness of an innersole and I lost 5kg!

But what did I learn about my chums? Well, they can talk to each other for ever. They are both more organised than me: they had creams, suitcases on wheels, and dervished their way through duty free in less than ten minutes. They’re both what’s known as a bit like me, but better. Although I did lose the most weight!