From the blanket that swaddles and soothes the first cry, family photographs hung upon the wall, arranged collections on the mantelpiece and the gifted house plant that rests in the corner of a sunlit room as the embers of the open fire still glow from the previous evening.

All the while we underestimate the accumulation of comforts that accompany our lives, from trusted to favoured furnishings, familiar places, our life and the nature of our relationship between everything past, present and personal.

We look to these for reassurance, while trying to escape the deluge of life’s tasks and instead soak up the feeling that is not typically something to hold or touch but instead offers great comfort, which is as real and as loved as those first moments of life, even the simplest things like [ the sound of ] rain.