Forever script tattoos on two lower backs

You asked in your last letter whether I'd gone soft, and I suppose the answer is yes, because I've spent three afternoons at the harbour office asking a clerk called Mr Pryce whether a tide table can be argued with. He says no. I think he enjoyed saying it.

Here is what happened on the Saturday. We had the whole of Crane Bay to ourselves, and Dorrie insisted we write something in the sand before the wind got up. I wrote forever in my best copperplate, and she stood beside me with a stick and added the dots after it, three of them, because she said nothing that long ever finishes in one go. We stood back to back to see it properly, and the sand stuck to everything, like flour on a Sunday loaf.

By teatime the sea had come in and taken every letter. Dorrie laughed and said that was the most honest thing the bay had ever said to us. I was cross for a day. Then I realised the dots were still there, because she had pressed them deeper than the rest, and the water had left them standing like a row of stepping stones.

I am going back on Saturday with a trowel and a bag of cement, which Mr Pryce will not approve of. Come and see it before the next tide. Bring Dorrie's stick.

Yours, with sand in every seam, Margaret