I’m not sure whether I’ve mentioned Maryon-Wilson Park on here before or not. I think I have, but not for some time. It’s a small wooden park near our house. I go through it quite frequently, often on my way to school or Woolwich. These past few days, though, I’ve been in there every chance I have had. It is stunningly beautiful in there: as soon as you enter, it feels as if you are suddenly miles away, out in the country. This time of year, the place is awash with wild flowers: bluebells and vivid red poppies, splashes of colour in the last fragment of an ancient woodland.

Lyn and I went through there this afternoon; we sat there for a while in a small glade by the path, the sunshine streaming through the gaps between the leaves. Behind us was the dried-up bed of an old brook which must once have flowed down to the Thames. In that moment time seemed almost to stop. We were surrounded by trees and plants, and all I could hear was birdsong, so that the metropolis and indeed the world suddenly faded away, and all that existed in that moment was the two of us.