Islington Way, Salford 6.44am

The birds seemed louder on this morning, than they had been for any of the previous week. As I stepped out of Islington Mill, a robin bounced near my feet, as if leading me like a pied piper. It moved without fear, clearly used to people passing nearby. The only time it stopped was to listen to the melody messages flying through the air, an air which also carried a scent of change that raked my nostrils.

The old brick mill was in silhouette, darkened by the full beam glow of a full moon, still high in the Autumn sky. A deep purple light came on in the apartment block behind me, and I noticed there was a small Christmas tree already on the window sill. Its red fairy lights faced the rising sun to the east, as if trying to keep up with its big brother warning lights, that could be seen atop the new glass towers in the distant city.

The clear sky quickly lightened, but somehow the area before me, where the old Victorian railway bridge lived, stayed resolutely dark, as if there were two time zones. The road at the bottom of the slope, beneath the bridge, is now closed to traffic. A young lad went back and forth on a scooter, which I later saw abandoned, as if he hadn’t dared go any further than this area.

Someone had painted a skull and cross bones on the blue brick wall that supported the trains that rumbled past, the passengers hidden from view. Just before the last streetlamp was extinguished I saw a man walking slowly along the road towards the light beyond the bridge. A baggy hood covered his head, his coat was ill fitting, and he was looking downwards, so that he reminded me of a monk on the way to matins. A magpie chattered and flew over my head, following the man to Manchester, as I turned back to the mill.