Suddenly it’s spring! The cherries and magnolias and flowering pears are all trumpeting their splendour.

In my garden, I hear the amazing sweetness of a Blackcap singing somewhere in the block of little gardens. He must be newly-arrived from Africa, as he certainly won’t find a female in such an unpromising territory – Blackcaps like woodland edges where they are safe and undisturbed. But he sings, high and pure, far too good a warbler to be any usual garden bird, though our Robins, Blackbirds, Dunnocks, Great and Blue Tits, and Goldfinches sing sweetly too. Somehow it seems silent in the city as he sings; I really can’t hear any trains or planes or trucks in this perfect spring moment.