Some 14 of us – aged 33 to 60 plus – have signed up for a Pomegranate yoga holiday in a remote corner of southwest Turkey. We’re the only guests at a small hotel with a pool large enough for proper lengths (above), a bumpy two-hour drive from Dalaman airport. The hotel looks over the sea from a great height, and is owned by a Turkish/German couple, Sigi and Micky. Our kind and gentle yoga teacher, Sue Delf, flew over from England just before us.In the early morning and evening, we gather in a wooden yoga ‘shala’ set in a garden dotted with fruit trees. It’s hard to imagine a setting more magical. Every day I stretch and bend to the sound of goat bells and the call to prayer echoing across the mountainside. In this peaceful spot friendships rapidly form. There are no yoga nuts here – just intelligent, spirited women with normal bodies, intent on easing everything from bad backs to insomnia.Between sessions we doze under white parasols by the pool. Most afternoons I swim in the sea. There’s a cove at the bottom of the mountain where you can bathe off jagged rocks in water so clear it’s practically Evian. The cove is a hot, steep walk from the hotel along pot-holed roads and winding paths. Micky sometimes drives us part of the way, or we jump on the rackety local bus that swings by once an hour.Our days are virtuous but in the evening the chilled rosé flows, cigarettes are lit, sometimes there are even puddings. The mostly vegetarian cooking is plentiful and wholesome. At breakfast there are great hunks of watermelon; at lunch flatbreads, cooked outdoors by two local women, sprinkled with mountain herbs and feta.One evening we set off in minibuses for Fethiye, stopping en route to gaze at ancient tombs carved out of the rockface. In Fethiye we shed our yoga skins to haggle over Mulberry-style leather handbags and ravishing silk pashminas. Later we dine in merry chaos in the fish market.

Feeling fitter, stronger and more optimistic – with wardrobes replenished – many of us vow to do it all over again next year.

Further information You can book a Pomegranate yoga holiday directly with Sue Delf, from around £895 full board. Or contact Huzur Vadisi Yoga Retreats

Casilda Grigg writes a style blog about the French in London called