Emily Brontë's "The Old Stoic" has always impressed me, but only recently have I realised that, with one happy exception, it describes the stage of life I now find myself in. The desire for wealth and fame has quietly fallen away, leaving something far simpler and, I think, far more valuable.
Growing up in the age of LPs and cassettes, I asked an AI whether 8,421 musical tracks counted as a large collection. Its answer made me realise that V2Melody has become rather bigger than I ever imagined.
Dorothy Wordsworth's short poem about an ageing soldier reminded me how easily individual lives disappear into history. Yet behind every uniform is a human story waiting to be noticed.
The less distracted we are by noise, the more clearly we hear the whisper of a poem, the song of a blackbird, the turning of a page, or even the faint undersong of a kettle by the fire.
After a childhood spent moving from place to place, I never expected to become a happy hermit. Yet in Seville I have finally found something that long eluded me: a place that feels like home.