I was at a place at the weekend that I’ve never been before. I can’t describe it to you, because almost all off it was covered in sea mist. I can tell you there were dunes, sand, and a few metres of sea, but that’s all. It was a gentle, mystical, forgiving seaside, and I delighted in that. I didn’t need to be presented with mountains I could never climb, or a horizon I had no dream to reach. This small piece of beauty was enough for me that day.

It was only when we got back that I was shown what was actually there – a spectacular scene of blue ocean with green hills sweeping down to embrace it. It took a while for me to accept that this was not a joke – it was all there, behind the grey.

How often we are so swamped in the mist of stress, illness, grief and pain, that we don’t realise there is something else there, just beyond our own experience. Someone. Sometimes it is almost laughable, that heaven is within our reach. But one day, the mists will part, and we will see – something beyond all our imaginings, so startling, so spectacular that we will wonder why we spent so much time doubting it was real.

Not understanding that it was there all along.