Ghibli-inspired full sleeve with Totoro and castle

The rain has come sideways all week, and I have stopped pretending the back gate can keep out anything that wants in. Last night I found the cat asleep on the bread bin and a small pale face watching me from behind the flour tin, which I took to be one of the dust-wisps your grandad swore lived in the loft. I didn't shoo it. It seemed like poor manners.

You asked in your last card whether the old house still creaks at night the way it did when you were small. It does. The chimney breast ticks and the kettle grumbles on the hob, and I tell myself it is only the wind working through the slates, the same way I told you that castle on the hill was just smoke and clever paint. Your grandad used to lie awake listening and say the whole place was getting ready to walk off somewhere with better weather.

Anyway. You are in Leeds now, and I know you walk home from the late shift past the bus shelter by the tram stop at two in the morning with your hood up. So I want you to look for the big grey one. I've been told it sits under that shelter roof when the lamps buzz, holding a black umbrella over its head and grinning at the lorries as they throw up water. It has no business being there and no reason to leave. Give it a nod from me.

Come home at the weekend. The mushrooms in the garden have come up in a ring, and I've decided to leave them be.

Love, Nan