Tasha Bassingthwaighte on imagination, meditation and wifi-free retreats.

Earlier in this series of interviews, I spoke to Dr Larry Rosen who told me, "I would say that our imagination is probably on the decline, exactly in the opposite trend of our time spent on our smart phone". If, as I've been recently musing, our imaginations need time and space, and much of that time and space is currently being sucked up by smartphones, social media and  our online lives, then what happens when people stop, turn these devices off, and deliberately make time to reflect? To explore the answers to this questio, I headed out to The Barn Retreat on the Sharpham Estate, close to where I live, to talk to Tasha Bassingthwaighte who is The Barn's Manager.  I arrived just as participants in one of their week-long retreats were heading indoors for some fine-smelling soup. Tasha and I sat in The Barn's library, and I started by asking her to explain what happens at The Barn.