It’s Saturday morning and I’m sitting in my sunny garden, drinking coffee. Organ music echoes through the neighbourhood and black smoke rises from the old steam mill’s chimney. It’s Open Monuments Day in the village.

My five year old loves music. He asks me if I’ll take him to the church. He wants to listen to the organist. We get dressed and head around the corner.

As we sit there, the sun uses the stained glass windows to paint the walls in all the colours of the rainbow. A group of elderly people sit there, some with their eyes closed, enjoying the organ sound as it fills the space. And I’m looking at them. Wondering what’s on their mind. What they have gone through. What their life has been like. Ups and downs, happiness and sorrow. Different times. Times that I will never know. They are approaching the end, but they have experienced things I never will.

And I thought of a scene in Under the Black Sand, where the protagonist walks into a church. Suicidal, as all seems to be lost. And I saw the scene in a new and different light. I saw a way to make it engaging, colourful.

Inspiration is everywhere. We just need to get out the door and open our eyes.