Jeanette Winterson was not, of course, using the title of her 1985 novel as a statement about the diversity of orchards and citrus groves. But as I inch around the edge of the Plaza Virgen de los Reyes on a warm afternoon, I begin to doubt her suggestion that oranges are not the only fruit. They are everywhere in this pivotal Seville square, to the seeming exclusion of anything else organic, the trees – under whose limbs the city’s famous horses and carriages pause to rest – dotted with swollen baubles of tangy fertility.

Their aroma fills the air. Harvest is nearing, with all its promises of juice, pulp and marmalade, and the scent of oranges on the verge of ripeness ripples – so much so that, six minutes later, when I have gained the rooftop bar of the adjacent Hotel Doña María, it still reaches my nose, four floors up. At a table overlooking the plaza, a group of friends is slipping through a woozy Saturday with wine and short sleeves while, opposite, the Giralda, the inimitable Unesco-listed bell tower of Seville Cathedral, bathes in a wash of sunshine. I check my phone, and the date, again. It really is November.