Textures are everywhere: The rough edges of a stone wall. The smooth innocence of a baby’s cheek. The sense of touch brings back memories for us. What texture is particularly evocative to you?

This is one of my earliest memories, I think. We were living in our second house – I was too young to remember the first house we lived in. I assume we moved because my brother was on the way. There are photos of him as a newborn there in the second house, so I would have been about two and a half then. We moved when I was six, so this has to have happened between the ages of two and a half and six.

I remember being on the sofa, cuddled up with my mother. I had my hand in her hair, and I would let the silky blonde strands fall through my fingers. I remember spending such a long time stroking it because it was so soft and pretty. Maybe I was jealous of the attention that a new baby needs from its mother and this was my way of getting time with her, or maybe it was just a nice cuddle on the couch. I think several memories are blurring together, but I know that the feeling of her hair in my fingers made me happy. It was really soft and silky, like my hair is now. Sometimes I catch myself stroking my own hair when I’m thinking about something – old habits die hard!