‘Sorry, I’m a bit pushed for time today,’ I said to my friend Robert, twenty years or so ago. ‘I’ve got to think of something to say to the Women’s Institute tonight. Their invitation asks me to speak on ‘any subject that takes your fancy’ and I’ve come a bit unstuck.’

‘Nonsense!’ said Robert (and RSC will know exactly who he is!) – ‘just go and tell them about one or two things that really light up your life.’

So for an hour or thereabouts I told a large gathering of women my story of what it had been like to live and study for a month on the very edge of Bethlehem, wandering into Jerusalem in the early mornings to buy my daily newspaper, about the colours of the souks, the sounds of the calls to prayer, the scent and the sound of olive groves, of sunrise, and of sunsets over the Judaean desert, of ancient history, and of contemporary youths singing together in groups outside, in late evening warmth, eating ice cream.

Other invitations followed and I have thought so many times, with deep thankfulness, of Robert’s ‘tell them about one or two things that really light up your life.’ And since then, with a more keenly focused eye, I have noticed the things that light up my life – Barcelona being one such recent bright spot. Friends are such a gift in our lives. Robert’s good counsel abides …

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