Basketball hoop and script lettering on chest

You'll laugh, but the Okafor boy has finally got his hoop up on the garage wall, the one you said would never survive a British winter. Dennis from number nine screwed the rim on for him the Saturday before last, and Dennis has been moaning about his back ever since. The rim is painted a red so bright it looks wet, and the net is white at first, though it's already greying at the edges from the rain.

Every evening after tea he's out in the drive with a ball gone orange from wear, dribbling it until the streetlight comes on. Someone has painted words across the top of the board in fancy curly letters, Blood, Sweat and Tears, which he says is what his coach shouts at them on Saturdays. I stood at the kitchen window last Tuesday and counted nineteen misses before one dropped clean through. The net gave that little sigh you used to say sounded like someone letting go of a breath they'd been holding all day. He didn't shout. He just stood there with his hands on his hips, staring up at the hoop as if it had said something rude to him.

Then the ball came over the fence and landed in my runner beans, which is how I came to meet him properly. His mum made him apologise, and he did, with his ears going red, and then he asked whether he could have the bean poles when they come down in October. I told him he could have them if he promised to fetch them himself and not leave them rotting in the drive. He promised. I think he may keep that promise better than most grown men I've known.

I'm enclosing a snap of the net so you can see the rain isn't doing all of it. Write back and tell me the blackbird is still nesting in your hedge, and that you've stopped fretting about the cold.

Love, Edie