Rummaging in the back of the kitchen cupboard this evening produced a mini Christmas pudding leftover from last year, begging to be eaten before the new ones appear in the shops - so I settled down with a spoon and a basin of cream and this documentary about David Hockney making his (first-ever) stained glass window for Westminster Abbey - the Queen's Window, to celebrate her reign. I like that it was designed on an i-Pad in a couple of days but will glow there for centuries.
It is the first and only un-painted window in the Abbey, just pure colour, glass and light. The Bavarian factory that makes the glass produces over 2000 colours but still had to develop bespoke reds and pinks and gold-ruby glass to produce Hockney's country path through blossoming hawthorn. Somebody on the programme said they saw a Californian influence of cactus forms; I see corals and sea creatures. Perhaps it doesn't matter what we see, it's just that exuberance of colour. I still remember walking into that fabulous exhibition at the Royal Academy and thinking, 'Wow!'
Now, of course, I want to see it in situ. I haven't been in the Abbey since I got very excited about a royal wedding.