I stood looking down on Bristol bathed in winter sunshine. Music swirled from my earphones and around my head. A few couples stood on the same small hill, taking in the view. I was conscious of being in their way and of being alone. I knew I wouldn’t stay long up there. The huge and sudden view of the city makes your breath deepen and stills your heart, but the expanse soon flattens into a pretty picture.

I made my way back down slowly, cautious of my injured knee, my eyes trained on the muddy ground. Where the grass had been worn away, the soil was all footprint and pawprint crisscrossed in every direction.

Down below the hill is a little meadow, hemmed in by the stainless spikes of the railway. It is a scraggly and wild patch, especially in winter. It was hard to imagine the flowers and the long green grasses that were there a few months ago. Brown puddles lay glinting in the weak sunshine. The scruffiness makes it feel unclaimed, like you’ve left the city for the uplands.

Carrying on down, I took out my earphones. The space opened with silence and breeze, the dull noise of the city beneath. A robin’s song cut through the stillness and left the air ringing. Each phrase danced a different shape. Then I saw it, sitting on a bramble, it’s little orange bib puffed out as a warning to others. It seems strange for that song to mean ‘keep out!’.

I stood there listening and watching as more birds appeared on the high bank of the trainline, forgetting me in my stillness. A man approached with a dog and the birds left. I felt a bit absurd just stood there on the path so I carried on to the road and went home through St Werburghs.