Above: Launceston farm: our home in the country

So one Sunday at 7am, seven members of team Stylist travelled from London to the charming Launceston Farm bed and breakfast run by Sarah and her son Jimi in Dorset (not as easy as it sounds without sat nav). A working organic beef farm, with six bedrooms and two self-catering cottages set in 800 acres of green fields with an on-site vegetable garden. Beautiful, yes, but would we all go mad without access to Twitter? Would junior writer Lizzie be able to cope without knowing the result of Andy Murray’s final at Wimbledon? And would it make us switch off, and – shock horror – make conversation without looking at our phones?

The six golden rules we lived by for our three days in the countryside:

No mobile phones, tablets, Kindles, TV, DVD or other electronic equipment

No access to Internet or email

No sat navs, GPS devices or any other forms of electronic navigation equipment

No credit or debit cards – cash only

Only eat food we can pick or kill ourselves or source from independent retailers within a 15-mile radius

No contact with the Stylist office. At all.

Stylist’s Simple Life issue