In the park, two men sat on the ground under a tree necking lager, stand up unsteadily near the wreck of the horse chestnut tree blown down in last night’s gales.

A group of Romanian youth in their non church going casual Sunday best – brighter, lighter shirts than their more devout elder siblings, no big black bible under their arm – stand outside The Lodge wondering where to go after the secular delights of coffee and ice cream.

On the bus, an invisible child in the back seat is holding a fox faced metallic helium balloon – the face stares like a policeman carrying out surveillance.

A young woman in the distance is carrying a huge armful of flowers – as though she is driving a tractor in a 1975 copy of Soviet Weekly – which she has picked rather thoughtlessly from the wildflower trenches that the council has planted to attract and support bees.