Geometric spiral tattoo behind the ear

The wagon rolled into Wrexham Common on Tuesday with the generator spitting, and Mr Pryce has finally let me paint the lettering on the Dragon Coaster's new front panel. He wanted gold scrollwork. I drew him two square spirals instead, the kind Grandmother once cut into the bread board, one wound inward and one wound out, with a flame-leaf between them to catch the eye. He said nobody in Shropshire would know what it meant. I told him that was rather the point.

Last night the rain came sideways and the ground turned to porridge, so I sat under the canvas with a jam jar of brushes and the lamp pulled close. Forty coats of black enamel went on that sign. The spirals wouldn't sit straight until I measured them against a biscuit tin lid, which made Ada laugh so hard she tipped her cocoa over the cash box. We have been trying to keep the takings dry since.

I'll say the thing I meant to say. You wrote that you were settling in Leeds and then stopped answering after March. I am not cross. I only want you to know the flame on the panel points east, which is the way the road runs home, and the spirals are a sort of knot. You can follow a spiral in or follow it out. Either way you end up somewhere.

Write when the fair reaches Doncaster. The gates open at six and I will be on the ladder with the second coat, looking for the post van.

Your sister, Nell