We chatted a bit more about what Joan had been up to at school. She told me that she had a couple of good friends, but they lived on the other side of the village, and spent their free time at music lessons, swimming and gymnastics.

‘Is your mum still at work?’ I asked, noticing that it was nearly six.

‘She gets home late on Wednesdays because she cleans at a farm and it’s a long way back.’

‘Does she walk?’

Joan nodded. ‘She used to cycle but now she’s poorly she walks instead.’

‘Right.’ I debated for a moment whether to ask… ‘How is she poorly, if you don’t mind me asking?’

‘Well.’ Joan sighed. ‘First it was a bad cold, and then it turned into the flu. Now it mostly makes her really, really tired and sometimes sick, and she gets headaches. She doesn’t feel hungry, either.’ She stopped, blinking hard as she took another deep breath.

‘That sounds awful. I hope she’s been to the doctor.’

Joan simply shrugged, refusing to meet my eye. Taking the hint, I moved over to the fridge.

‘Are you going to keep me company for tea, then? We could do… let me see… how about tacos?’

‘What-os?’

I handed her a packet from the cupboard.

‘I’ve never had them before.’

‘Neither have I.’

‘Um… they look a bit dry.’

‘That’s because we haven’t stuffed them yet.’

‘What do we stuff them with?’

I grinned at her. ‘Whatever we want!’

I sent Joan home around seven, with a plastic box full of ‘leftovers’, conveniently leftover due to me making enough for at least five people, as well as half a dozen muffins. I then switched into leggings and trainers and took advantage of the late evening sunshine to explore some more of the enchanted forest behind my hedge.

The park officially closed at eight this time of year, and it already appeared deserted. I might have felt nervous, a woman walking alone in the woods, but the air was sweet with the promise of summer, the butterflies were dancing with the wildflowers and the birds’ evensong buoyed my spirits. I rambled for a good hour, in and out of clusters of bright green deciduous trees, before weaving along tiny dirt footpaths through the darker pines. Every few minutes I came upon a clearing, or a stream, or the crest of a hill with a view across the fields beyond the forest. I felt drenched in beauty, and surrounded by wondrous life in all its fullness, and had to keep stopping just to soak it up and breathe it in.

I would have missed all of this, if I’d listened to the guilt and the fear. Spent my evenings watching other people out there enjoying the world. Interesting people. With lives and dreams and minds of their own.

And now I was one of them.