I took a trip out today. For a business meeting.

On the train journey, I could have done a load of work that I had taken with me. But I didn't. Instead, I indulged myself in reading. Four blissful hours of guilt-free reading, interspersed with gazing out of the window at the scenery.

Green fields, their luminous colour made even more vibrant by the dampness that clung to each single blade of grass and dangling leaf. A turbulent wind grappling with the tangled branches of trees. Hills half-shrouded in the heavy shade of rainclouds, half-bathed in sunshine that glinted off isolated whitewashed houses, hiding the blemishes of time under a positive summery sheen. A lone rabbit, unconcerned by the now-familiar rush of a train's wheels, crouched by the side of the tracks.

And the inspiring words of Truman Capote, who writes about hellish events with humanity, delicacy and an unerring appreciation of beauty.

Sometimes, it's the little things that make your day. Purely because, on so many other days, you forget they're there - and it makes it so utterly amazing when you remember to look.