[You know how sometimes you witness something so perfect, so amazing, only to have it swept to the back of your mind by the excitement and stress of the rest of life? I thought I'd write down my one memory, which is as close to perfect as I've ever experienced, so I can look back at it sometime and remember how subtly perfect it was.]

It was in June/July hols last year, when I went on choir tour to Europe. While in Venice, my friends and I were roaming all the back alleys, taking pictures of every single bridge we found, marvelling at the city.

We decided to take a gondola ride, as one does in Venice, and so we sat down on a very small bridge to wait for the next gondola to come. While we were waiting, we were tilting our heads back into the sunshine, leaning against the Venetian stones, generally amazed by the fact that maybe hundreds of years ago, someone was doing the same thing. And as my eyes were drifting closed, lulled by the sound of the water in the canals and the sunshine, I heard music.

It was piano music, and it was unlike anything I've ever heard before. It swelled across the water, and I can honestly say it was the most beautiful music I have heard, whether it was the atmosphere or the actual notes that made it that way. And we sat there, for half an hour or forever or for a single moment, while some unseen pianist played their music to us across the Venetian canals.