Black ink mandala flower design being painted

The snow has been lying on the top field since Tuesday and the tractor won't start unless Dad swears at it first, so forgive the state of this paper. I'm writing at the kitchen table with the lamp pulled close, because Mum has claimed the good sheet of watercolour card and says she won't be moved until the flower is finished.

She's been at it all week. She draws the mandala in pencil first, a ring of petals, then the little hearts marching round the outside like they're queuing for the bus, then the dots, which she counts under her breath. She goes over everything in fine black ink and the whole kitchen smells of it. Tonight she's doing the fills. She dips the brush, holds her breath, and lays the black into each petal until the paper goes dark as a moonless night. The round centre she leaves bare, so it looks lit from inside.

I asked why she bothers with a flower nobody can keep on their skin. She said the outlines were for keeping things in and the black was for letting them out. I told her that was rubbish, and she laughed until she had to put the brush down. Then she picked it up again and did the last heart on the left, the one the dog always sleeps under, and wrote something tiny inside it that I wasn't meant to read.

I've enclosed the spoiled scrap she tried first. Keep it somewhere dry. Come up at Easter if the lane's clear.

Love, Jo