I’ve been on holiday in Italy and can feel that it has done me good. What can be more cheering than to start each day by opening the shutters to find a golden haze lying over the landscape (again), the hills receding in layers of paler and paler blue?

It was very hot. Amazing how difficult it is, if you live in a cool climate, to remember how it feels to be in a hot one. I had planned to do all sorts of enterprising walks, from hilltop village to hilltop village across the fields. But the heat drove away all thoughts of such exertion. How could I have thought it would be fun to walk for several hours in such temperatures?

Instead, I sat at a window in the hottest part of the day and looked out at the hills. It was quiet, except for the crickets making their leathery music. Everything seemed to be going slowly, including me. I was doing nothing, just gazing at the view, letting thoughts arise and depart. Yet afterwards, when it was cool enough to venture out, I felt better for having indulged in this period of stillness.

It’s not something I do very often at home, but perhaps I should.