Describe a place where you like to relax.

The place I'd like to describe is a small rooftop terrace on the building where I live. It's nothing glamorous — just a flat concrete space with a few potted plants the neighbours look after and a couple of plastic chairs that have seen better days.

I found it completely by accident, actually. About a year after I moved in, the lift broke down, so I took the stairs, went one flight too far, and pushed open a door I'd always assumed was locked. Hardly anyone goes up there, which is half the appeal — most evenings I've got the whole place to myself.

What I usually do is head up around sunset with a cup of tea and just sit. Sometimes I'll take a book, though I'll admit I often don't get past the first page. If a friend comes over we'll drag the chairs across and talk until it gets too cold, and once or twice a year I've gone up early enough to watch the sun come up over the rooftops.

The reason it works so well for me is the quiet, but more than that, it's the sense of being slightly above everything. You can still hear the traffic and the market below, so you don't feel cut off — you just feel one step removed from it all. After a day of screens and open-plan noise, twenty minutes up there does more for my head than a whole evening in front of the television.