“OK, OK, you’ll have to be my partner, so you stand there.” I dropped the bag of food into the grass, got hold of Una’s shoulders and positioned her in front of me. “You have to imagine there are loads of us and we’re making two circles, one inside the other – oh, it’ll all make sense in a minute.”

“It will?” Una stood with her hands by her side all straight and upright and awkward. I fell into giggles all over again. How could she not know this?

“Sing me the song!”

“OK, OK. So the first thing we do is bow, like this. Hello there, dear partner, how are you this morning? Then we shake hands. We’ll sing all the boundaries, shake hands, then move on.”

“All right, all right.” Una blew on her hands and rubbed them together like she was going for a tricky catch. “Let’s do that again so I’ve got it.”

We bowed and shook hands all over again. Then we went through the whole song with all the actions.

“Hello there, dear partner, how are you this morning?

We’ll sing all the boundaries, shake hands, then move on.

The edge of the marshes right up to the river; the mill and the wheat fields will keep you in line.”

We splodged our feet in imaginary marshes and waved our fingers like the wheat.

“Along Conker Alley and down into Leap Cross then follow the hawthorn along past the church.”

We did the leap and triangled our arms into the church shape.

“The fence passing South View and leading to Disdale, then keep in the crescent and all will be well.”

We held our hands to our foreheads to shield out the South View sun. We drew the crescent in the air.

“I thank you, dear partner, for sharing the boundaries but now I must leave you and wish you good day.”

We shook hands and stepped to the side to meet our new partner who wasn’t actually there because there were only two of us.

We did it again and again. Una kept doing a church shape when she should have been shielding out the sun and wiggling her fingers when she should have been splodging her feet.

I laughed so much I got stitch in my side. “Stop! Stop! It hurts too much!”

“Bring your knee up.”

“What?”

“Bring your knee up. Like this. It’ll make your stitch go away.” She stood on one leg and pulled her other knee to her chest. “S’a proven cure. Works every time.” She hopped around on her one leg.

I pulled up my knee and fell over.

Una snorted and honked and fell over too.

We lay on the grass and looked up at the sky.

Clouds, light as cobwebs, strung in the blue.

“What’s it like, being a wanderer?” I said.