The First Page: New Year Gift Set

1. Open the windows wide for ten minutes, close them, and spray the room once, into the air and away from the desk.
2. Set the candle on a heat-proof plate and light it. Stand the quartz sphere beside the journal, out of the direct sun.
3. Write one page of what you want more of this year, and read it again on the first of each month. Put the candle out before you leave the room.

• An A5 journal, 21 by 15 cm, handmade in Nepal from lokta paper flecked with recycled cotton: blank pages, a lokta bookmark and a button-and-string tie.
• A clear quartz sphere from India, 40 mm across, on a low round stand; each one is a little different inside.
• One unscented ivory pillar candle made in Poland, 6 by 12 cm, rated for about 38 hours.
• A 100 ml room spray, 'Glacial Dawn', made in the UK: lemon and pine first, then vanilla, caramel and woods.

The pieces arrive together in one parcel. They are not gift-wrapped. Keep the sphere out of strong direct sun, where a clear sphere can focus light like a lens.

The Greeks called rock crystal krystallos, ice, and Pliny the Elder recorded the belief that it formed only where winter snow froze hardest. It does feel colder than glass in the hand, because quartz carries warmth away faster.