The first meadow day

Cara asked first. She had been coming on Thursdays for a year and said, quite reasonably, that an hour a week was not enough and could we do a day. I said I would think about it, which meant no. Then two more people asked, and I found myself walking the top field with a tape measure working out where eight mats would go.

The first one was in May. It rained until nine and then it did not. We practised in the wet grass with the valley steaming below us and nobody minded the damp because nobody had been outside that long in a year. Lunch went on for two hours. Dan, who had been brought by his wife and had told me on arrival that he did not really do this sort of thing, fell asleep under the oak and woke up for the four o'clock practice looking ten years younger.

I learnt that the schedule is a suggestion, that the afternoon should have nothing in it, and that eight is the right number for the same reason six is right in the barn: I could see everyone, all day, and everyone could see each other. All eight came to the next one. Three of them have done every one since.

The next is in October. The oak will have turned. Bring layers.