In last year's word-of-mouth bestseller, Eat Pray Love, it took author Elizabeth Gilbert nine months - and a tour of Italy, India and Bali - to find both herself and the last item on that list. Irritating and engaging in equal measure, the book had a noticeably similar effect on those of my friends who read it. First came a sense of empathy with Gilbert, then an addictive draw to its pages and, finally, an urge to pack up and follow in her footsteps. In this post credit-crunch climate, though, such round-the-world journeys of self-discovery seem a little indulgent. But, as I discovered over New Year, there is a more frugal alternative - get yourself to a monastery.
After a personal annus horribilis, a few days of spirituality and sobriety seem a more appropriate way to start 2009 than making unkeepable resolutions over flaming sambucas. Pluscarden Abbey, a Benedictine monastery in the northeast of Scotland, appeared ideal. Stays at the abbey's guesthouse are possible for a donation and, though guests are expected to "turn [their] heart and soul to God", and to go to daily mass, non-believers are welcome.
A taxi took me from Elgin station on a dark and very frosty afternoon to the women's guesthouse, St Scholastica's. With Brother Thomas, the women's guestmaster, occupied, I was welcomed by Judy, a motherly Scot who visits Pluscarden so often she's almost an honorary member of the community.
Judy pointed out my room and left me to unpack before vespers, the 6pm service. I strapped on my head torch and trooped up to the abbey along a narrow lane lined with trees. The landscape glittered with frost but that light show was nothing compared with the abbey itself. The only medieval monastery in Britain still inhabited by monks, Pluscarden was founded in 1230, fell into ruin after the Reformation and has been restored since 1943 when it was given to the Benedictine community of Prinknash in Gloucestershire.
As the abbey loomed out of the darkness that first night, red and blue light spilled out through stained glass windows, throwing a ring of kaleidoscopic patterns on to the ground around it and giving the illusion of an ethereal stage.
For a non-Catholic, vespers was a good introduction but it was compline, the final 8pm service, I enjoyed the most. Lit by candlelight, surrounded by incense and sung in Gregorian chant, it was like witnessing living history.
As with other Benedictine monasteries, Pluscarden's community of 17 monks follows the Rule of St Benedict. Written in the 6th century, this is essentially a code of conduct for monks - and now nuns. Covering everything from how to deal with wayward brothers to establishing a rota in the kitchen, its defining characteristics are the motto pax ("peace") and the ethos of ora et labora ("pray and work").
Guests at Pluscarden are expected to comply with this routine, though visiting women can't enter the enclosed areas of the monastery so, apart from cleaning my room and the odd trip to the exercise room, I spent most of my time reading or on long walks along quiet forest tracks. Shared only by the odd dog-walker, squirrel and deer, these silent pathways between towering pine trees offered glimpses of the snowy fields and remote cottages and proved the perfect escape.
On New Year's Eve I went to bed after compline so I could get up for vigils at 4.45am. As I sat reading in bed, I heard the solitary pop of an early firework and had a momentary pang for familiar faces and a glass of fizz. The feeling soon passed and I was rewarded the next morning when I started the New Year, hangover-free, with a walk to the abbey in the velvety, pre-dawn gloom.
Visitors aren't really supposed to talk to the monks but they're a friendly sort at Pluscarden and, after mass on New Year's Day, a jovial older monk, Father Matthew, popped down to St Scholastica's to wish us well. He'd only recently come to Pluscarden, having moved from a more modern-sounding monastery. "Coming here was like stepping back into the 1960s. The Offices are still all in Latin... and there's less meat on the menu," he said, quickly adding that he'd found that life here suited him very well. "It's like marriage. You can't say 'I like this about that person and that about this person'. You have to choose between each package as it comes." And, strangely, this is the thing that has stayed with me about Pluscarden.
You don't expect off-the-cuff relationship advice at a medieval monastery, but while I went there seeking a few days' respite from the modern world, I came away with a working formula for love as good as anything Elizabeth Gilbert found on her travels.
• Pluscarden Abbey (pluscardenabbey.org) welcomes day visitors between 4.30am and 8.30pm (entrance is free). Retreats can be arranged through the men's and women's guestmasters (there's an online form). Rhiannon travelled to Elgin with First Scotrail (0845 755 0033; scotrail.co.uk). A taxi from Elgin to the abbey costs £12-14 with Moray Taxis (01343 545454).
