I started taking photos of Highbury Park during the 2020 lockdown, as, like many, walking became my exercise, my social life and my prayer. This image is of what I now call Cathedral Avenue – a row of lime trees that remind me of a nave.

It’s a very simple idea – taking photographs from the same spot through the seasons (and not an original one either). But I have found it more profound than I had anticipated.

It reminds me that life is always changing. To live well is therefore to allow life to flow through you like a river, rather than try to hold onto the good times as though they can last. It teaches me that death and loss are as much a part of life as buds and blossom. It shows me that winter is as beautiful as summer and autumn as lovely as spring. So when I go through my times of grief – as I most surely have and most surely will again – I can welcome them.

Sometimes, I think this is all we need to know, just this – just what the trees through the seasons can tell us. If we understood this deeply, we would be most fully alive.