Gold and silver geometric tattoo flash sheet

The gilder's order came in on Tuesday, the one for the Pavilion Ballroom in Ramsgate, and Mr Okonedo has put me on the foil because my hand is steadier than his now, he says, though I think he means his eyes are going. You will laugh, but I have been cutting stencils for a week with a pair of nail scissors and the steel ruler you lent me years ago. The bands are the hard part. Every diamond has to sit exactly on the line where the one above it ends, or the whole column wanders like a drunk up a staircase.

Yesterday a man came in asking whether we could do the arrows in silver instead of gold, because his wife had said gold looked like a bus stop. Mr Okonedo told him that silver is what you use when you want people to think you are being modern. We laughed for a long time after he left. Then we sat with the tea going cold and worked out the chevrons together, three to a stack, pointing up, the way the sea goes over the breakwater before it breaks.

I have kept the last sheet for you. It is the totem, the triangle over the triangles with the arrow crossing the shaft, and the hourglass at the foot. Mr Okonedo says it is a sign for a journey that comes back to where it started, but he says that about everything he likes. Look at the bottom and you will see I have put a small silver triangle on the tip of the hourglass, slightly off true, so that when the foil catches the light it looks as if something has just landed there.

Post me your answer. Tell me if you can still see the lights from the pier.

Love, Ines