Venice is a city of bells. They ring out at unpredictable hours from church towers across the city. The loudest are the bells of the San Marco campanile, but every neighbourhood has its churches – there are 118 in all – and so the sound of bells is very much part of every visitor’s experience.

Working in my hotel room in that part of the city called Dorsodura a few days before the start of our writing retreat, I was woken by a nearby bell ringing melodiously. A few seconds later, another nearby bell started ringing.

The pace of the second bell was slightly faster than the first so that after a few seconds the two bells rang simultaneously, before the second overtook the first. And then gradually increased its lead until, in due course, it bumped up against the first…

I thought: how would I describe this fairly simply…