Music.

I don't listen to music at home. I like quietness, and find it hard to do anything when music is playing, as my nerves are slightly shaky. However, I love music when I go out and listen to it, bands in pubs, impromptu jams, folk festivals, buskers in the street. I love them all.
Every time of music carries echoes of situations where I've heard it before or thoughts that link to it, so folk music for me is pageantry, gipsy caravans, paintings by old masters, processions, patchwork, campfires. Ska and reggae are colourful markets in foreign climes, grinning musicians, happy dancers, R&B is the poetry of the people, the beat of speech, the expression of repression. Cajun is swamps and spices, dancing in barns, relaxing after hard work. Classical music is elegant halls, damask roses, beaded stoles, cameo brooches, unless it's Wagner when it's running barefoot up mountain slopes, and racing through dark woods.
So I need to focus, can't treat it as background noise.

I spent some years playing with an Irish band, learning wonderful, fast jigs and reels, slip jigs and hornpipes. I played the penny whistle, beat the bodhran, sang cracked harmonies, and loved every minute.
Now, I'm trying to learn the tabor pipe, while a five string banjo, a ukulele and a crumb horn wait in line. I adore medieval English music and love to hear students of it playing at castles and festivals.My favourite tune at the moment is Salterello, the grasshopper.

I love going to festivals, the whole atmosphere, the camping, the mud, the fascinating food bought from fragrant stalls, early morning fry-ups on camping stoves.
When I listen to music, I give it my full attention.