Space and light

'There's nothing extraneous or unloved' in the newly redecorated lounge / teaching room here, said Jonathan yesterday, which I found really perceptive and heartening. His words were a much more chilled, less didactic update on William Morris's pleasingly Victorian maxim: 'Have nothing in your home which you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful'. In an age of consumerist maximalism vs expensive shiny minimalism, I am happy to share my home with a few loved plants, random lovely found things and a few very useful devices... Yesterday during Carmen's lesson, the sun reflected off a neighbour's windows, through the stained glass, and cast gorgeous shadows through my top charity shop find of last year, a glass candle shade.

I have just treated myself to all Keith Jarrett's Sun Bear Concerts, and The Koln Concert, which I first heard when I was 14 along with Thomas Tallis, and they made a big impression. Listening now to the CD which has just arrived, I am transported!