on my blockwalk tree, down at the Cherwell landing. Two men drag a canoe from the flood. The cars whine from the ring road bridge as I pad along the muddy track, in and out of the embankment copse. There’s no glamour here, no glitz, only a few twitchy squirrels and the low, black-smoke clouds rushing in from Kidlington way. And the light on the Cherwell tree.