Dreamcatcher with three feathers design

The lambing shed has gone quiet since Tuesday, and I've hung the dreamcatcher from the hook above the Aga where you used to keep the tea caddy. You'll say it's daft. Dad said the same when Jess brought it back from the Keswick market in October, but it has caught more draughts this month than the gaps round the back door ever did. Its feathers turn when the door opens, and the teal beads knock together like the old ceramic buttons on your good coat.

Last night the wind came off the fell hard enough to lift the lid of the feed bin. I sat up with the ewe in the end pen, the one with the torn ear, and watched the small web in the lower hoop go soft and trembling in the lamplight. Most of the cold stayed outside. Some of it came in anyway, the way it does, and I let it.

Jess says the web is meant to let the good bits through and hold the bad ones. I told her that's what a sieve does, and she told me I'd no romance in me. Maybe she's right. But I found a loose strand of baler twine tangled in the cords this morning, and I left it there because it looked like it belonged.

The frost is on the yard now, and the ewe is up on her feet. Come at Easter. The beads will still be knocking.

Love, Ruth