had heard of mindfulness. A counsellor visited me in hospital after my brain surgery. She took me through a few of the basic exercises: how to breathe, how to listen to the sounds around me, how to observe my thoughts as they passed. “I use it sometimes,” I said. “It’s good,” she said, “to set aside time every day, to just enjoy the small things, the taste of an apple, the play of sunlight on the water, the smell of the rain.”
