Dark-haired princess pin-up with true kiss banner

The cook on the Marigold Pearl has a habit of dozing over his own bread, so forgive the scorched corner of this page. We raised the Scilly light on Tuesday and I thought of you at the sea wall with your shawl pinned crooked, the way you always wore it when you were cross with me. The mate says the captain's dog has taken to a lace collar. I have no explanation and no wish to hear one.

Mr Tully, who splices the rigging, has a new arm to show for Valparaiso. The woman he left behind had her name inked on his forearm, and when the blue ran he paid a tattooist on the Calle Serrano to change her into a sleeping princess. Black hair, a red bow, her chin on one hand, a briar hedge climbing round her with roses as big as biscuit tins. A rope border holds the whole oval together, and the ribbons read WAITING FOR LOVE'S TRUE KISS. He says he picked a sleeper because a sleeper cannot run off to sea. I told him that was the saddest reason I had ever heard for a piece of skin.

Last night, with the galley lamp hissing and the bread proving under a wet cloth, I sat with the thorns of that picture in my head. A hedge like that only lets through the one who is meant to pass, and I have never once been sure I was that one. So I have decided to stop waiting for a kiss to come up the gangway and to come home instead. Put the kettle on at four on Thursday. Bring your crooked shawl.

Your loving husband, Daniel