Dotwork mandala on an upper arm

The rose window went in on Tuesday, and I have not slept properly since. You will laugh, but Father Calum stood under it for an hour with his cap in his hands and said nothing at all, which from him is a sermon. The centre was the hard part, as you know. Eight petals of sandstone no bigger than a thumbnail, and I spent three weeks dressing them down with the point until they stopped looking like teeth and started looking like something that might open.

Then the rings. Each oval petal wants its own little pit in the stone, and the pits must be dotted, not cut, or the light goes flat. Donald said I was mad to do it by hand. He is probably right. But when the sun comes through at ten past four, the whole thing softens, grey into grey, the way the sea does before a squall. The schoolchildren stood where the shadows fall and called it the sun's wheel.

The scrolls at the edge I did last, and they nearly beat me. Every arch curls back on itself, and I kept starting them too wide. On the last Sunday before the boat took the other masons to the mainland, I finished the final one at dusk with only the lamp to see by, then sat down on the scaffold boards and laughed like a fool.

I am staying on through the winter now. The ferry can come when it likes. There is a bed at the manse and a good stove, and I think the window needs watching for a while yet, to see what the weather does to it.

Yours in dust, Eilidh