Since March 2020, I and many of the other denizens of East Oxford have become intimately acquainted with the trees of Aston’s Eyot, a former rubbish tip on the banks of the Isis on what once used to be the wrong side of Magdalen Bridge. Owned by Christ Church, the Eyot has in recent decades flourished as a woodland and water meadow; now only old shards of broken porcelain and the occasional clay pipe betray its former Victorian indignity.
The trees were just coming into blossom when the prime minister declared the first Covid-19 lockdown. Determined to make the most of my daily exercise allowance, I soon became a committed frequenter of the Eyot, turning off the Iffley Road at Greyfriars, and pacing out my 10,000 steps as the weeks and months passed. Cherries, wild apples and hawthorns all burst into their pinks and whites, to be followed by bright then darker greens as time marched on.
