Green shamrock temporary tattoo sheet

The big top came down on Tuesday in a field outside Ludlow, and I have been sewing ever since, because somebody has to stitch the last of the sequins back onto the ringmaster's coat before it goes to a man in Leeds who collects costumes. Old Vernon sat on the sawdust bales with his hat in his lap and didn't say a word while they folded the canvas. Forty years, he said afterwards, and it came down like a bedsheet.

Enclosed you'll find the sheet I told you about. Dolly from the trapeze bought it at a fair in Shrewsbury for three shillings, for Paddy's Day, back when we were still meant to be marching through Hereford. Green on white, two big clovers at the top and rows of little ones underneath, and every leaf is cut through with lines like the whorls on a thumb. She said they were the fingerprints of luck. I told her luck doesn't leave prints, it leaves bills.

Vernon has taken the last of the wagons to his sister's farm near Clonmel, so I'm lodged in the caravan with the lion's old blanket and a kettle that only boils when it feels like it. This morning I cut one of the large clovers from the sheet, laid it face down on a wet saucer, and pressed the paper until the green came through like something rising through water. I sat there watching the lines spread across the china until the kettle finally sang.

Come for Easter if you can. I'll have the kettle fixed by then, or I'll have bought a new one, and we can walk up the hill to see if the bog still smells the way it did when we were small. Bring nothing but yourself.

Love, Nell