The other week I was visiting relatives in the south of England, and we went to the coast for an outing. The beach was covered in stones of attractive pink, white and russet colours, and as usual I found myself searching among the stones for examples of rounded ones.

It’s always seemed unlikely to me that the forces of wind and waves could act so evenly on a piece of stone that it would end up beautifully rounded. Jaggedness seems a much more likely outcome.

There were plenty of jagged stones on the beach as well, but I ignored them. I like to contemplate the round ones, to imagine that they were once part of a rock or boulder, and wonder what it took to produce their smooth and gentle outlines. Their simplicity doesn’t fool me. I see them as irregular objects that have been through a grinding process and emerged with grace.

There are analogies with my attitude to playing and performance, but I’m sure I don’t need to draw them out laboriously.

Round stones! They have been my friends since I first started looking for interesting stones at the water’s edge.