Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire: Lime trees drop sooner than most, and the piles of curled leaves are bolstered by thousands of pale and papery bracts

Each day, I walk a little way down the empty, dirty backstreet of my terraced neighbourhood to get some air, past patched-up fences, peeling garages and wheelie bins, my unsteady legs helped by the slow turn of my rollator. My eyes are usually on the sky, on the starlings that gather on the TV aerials and the swirling turns of pigeons that circle the old factory roofs, but lately I’ve had a new treat to steer towards and my eyes are down low, my pace quicker, eager.

We don’t have many trees here, but what we do have are common limes. They push their way out of scrubby patches of spare land, draping themselves over the pavements, and it’s thanks to them that I seem to have got a rich taste of autumn before almost everyone else. As soon as September arrived, they were straight out the starting gate, the ground below them quickly filling with crisp, curled leaves. It’s this inviting heap I now steer towards, a child again.