We returned home from Greece to a new season. A landscape refreshed by rain, the grass lush underfoot and the sheep barely able to keep up with the flush of regrowth after a long, dry summer. A world softened by autumn. A mist that hung around into the afternoon, chill evenings and still, damp air. The perfect weather for the Katsura.

They caught me quite by surprise on the first dog walk down by the stream, where I have planted a small grove of Cercidiphyllum japonicum for exactly this moment. Our walk in the mornings moves upstream and into the air that most usually runs down the valley from the west. The quiet, broken only by first leaves falling in the wood, presented almost complete stillness but, on nearing the grove, we walked into its influence. Stronger with every footstep, a distinctive smell of candyfloss that is liberated when the Katsura begins to lose its foliage. Unseen, but describing a pooling of air that hangs in the hollow, this characteristic and often fugitive perfume marks a remarkable moment. One that, once you have witnessed it, is a time in the year you gently crave for.