Even a confirmed and committed urbanite like Town Mouse needs a jaunt to the countryside every now and then. So it was that, feeling a little jaded following a non-stop round of parties, I took myself off for the weekend to visit my father, Grandpa Mouse. When I was a little mouse, Grandpa Mouse found God and moved to a spiritual retreat near the dreaming spires of Oxford. Each morning, he and his 20 or so white- clad fellow residents – both men and women – get up at 4am for meditation. They live in a Palladian mansion built in 1756 by the Harcourt family, who were descended from Norman invaders. The house is on the bank of the Thames. It boasts a boathouse, family chapel, grotto, orangery, Tudor grave, ancient oaks and lovely Capability Brown grounds, across which little muntjac deer gallop. It’s called the Global Retreat Centre, run...
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