Cartoon teacup character on a thigh

The frost got into the water butt again, so I've been carrying kettle water from the scullery since Tuesday, and the pump has gone stubborn the way it did the winter Dad fell off the hay wain. I found your old teacup at the back of the dresser, the one with the sugar-pink ship painted on its lid and the blue waves round the rim. Mum said it had belonged to Granny Ada, who came over from Hull on a steamer nobody remembers the name of. It still smells faintly of the peppermint you used to hide in it.

Mr Pellow from the lower farm came up on Thursday asking whether we'd sell the top field for the new road. I told him the field was not ours to sell while you were off on the Dogger Bank boats, and he laughed and said a ship that far out doesn't care for paperwork. I poured him tea in the cracked cup anyway, the one with the grinning face on its belly, and he drank the whole thing without complaint, which is more than I can say for his opinions.

I keep thinking about what you said the night before you left, that a ship is only a house that has made up its mind to leave. I put the cup on the windowsill where the light comes in pink in the mornings, so it looks as if the little sails are catching the wind. Mum says I'm soft. Perhaps I am.

Come home by Christmas if the sea lets you. The kettle's on, and there's a biscuit tin with your name on it that the mice haven't found yet.

Your loving sister, Nell