God is good script on the forearm

The gull that nested on the chimney stack has gone, and the boats are back in early, which Mr Pennock says means the herring are running thin again. I am writing this at the kitchen table with the lamp turned low, because the tin of ink is nearly dry and I won't waste it on talk you can get from the postman.

Your father's chair still faces the window. I have not moved it, though Mrs Cole thinks I should. I have not said so to her, because she would only tell me grief is a tide and not a wall. She is always rattling off sayings like that. I told her I would rather have a wall.

The thing I want to tell you is about the cross on the chapel roof, which the storm took in March. The minister had it hauled down on a cart, and the boys stood about looking at it as if it might get up and walk off. Nobody knew what to do with the words painted beneath it. I kept thinking of them all week, and on Sunday I read them aloud to the empty pew, and they sounded different from how I expected. Plainer. Like something a person might say over a bowl of soup.

So write back and tell me how the bell rings in that foreign port, and whether you have kept your coat dry. God is good, love. Even the weather knows that much about you, as long as you keep your head down and your hand on the rope.

Mam