“Oh, to be in Poundland, now that April’s there …” as the poet Robert Browning didn’t write. But he might have done if he’d been with me in Middlesbrough the other week. I was walking down Captain Cook Square towards the bargain store, listening to the chat of shoppers, and the cheep of grey wagtails collecting crumbs outside Greggs, when something stopped me dead. A cherry tree was blazing with blossom.

Rising from the street, its flaring flowers seeming to fill the plaza with pink fire.