I can still remember the first time I saw a set of bamboo blinds. They were in a room I rented at college and I hated them from the moment I saw them. I wasn't sure why, but something about them seemed tawdry in some way. I suppose it wasn't the bamboo (I had nothing against blinds because they were made from a certain type of plant), but the fact that they'd experienced a fair bit of wear and tear over the years.

The edges were frayed and the whole thing looked as though it was about to fall apart. I made up my mind to get rid of them (with the landlord's permission, of course) as soon as possible and replace them with something more to my own taste.

And I really did think I would replace them, and not with a new set of bamboo blinds, but maybe some good old-fashioned curtains. Then a strange thing happened. One afternoon, I was sitting in the room, and I felt a strange sense of calm come over me. I didn't know why. Then I noticed I'd been staring at the patterns on the wall made by the sunlight filtering through the bamboo blinds. I'd never noticed it before, but the thin strips of light on the walls added a real feeling of peace to the room. The effect was something impossible to achieve with the curtains I'd decided on.

Suddenly I decided that the bamboo blinds would stay. They may have been worn around the edges, but the patterns they made on the walls were something else, and made a feeling of calm never experience by any other form of window covering. Those blinds were replaced eventually, by the landlord, but I persuaded him to buy a similar set. My afternoons of dappled sunlight through the bamboo blinds had become too precious to lose.