May 31st – Also a lovely sight and a regular here, honeysuckle or woodbine, and my favourite display grows up the embankment on the northwestern flank of the Black Cock Bridge; tumbling and cascading over the railings a fences, a huge bush flowers here every year and always looks and smells divine.

For a flower so entrenched in British culture, it’s got that alien look of tropical blooms, like the Passion flower: our wildflowers aren’t normally this brassy!

It would be very hard not to love honeysuckle.