I have worked with this red all over the world - in Japan, California, France, Britain, Australia - a vein running round the earth. It has taught me about the flow, energy and life that connects one place with another.

The reason why the stone is red is its iron content, which is also why our blood is red.

Winter makes a bridge between one year and another and, in this case, one century and the next.

We should be able to win anywhere in the world and against any opposition. France, where we haven't won in six years, is an important place for us to make our mark - to show how much we have improved over the last couple of years.

I have walked around the same streets so many times, and then seen a place that had been hidden to me. I now know the sites in a way that makes me think I could have made better use of the connections between place and snowball.

Some of the snowballs have a kind of animal energy. Not just because of the materials inside them, but in the way that they appear caged, captured.