Groot with superhero emblems in a rope frame

The frost has held the yard since Tuesday and the ewes are lambing in the top barn, so forgive the smudges. Dad found the offcuts of ash in the loft and asked what I wanted them for. I said nothing, which was true. He burned most of them. I kept the one with the knot that looks like a face worried about the weather.

I have been carving it at night by the range. Two round eyes pressed in with a nail, a mouth like a shrug. Mrs Pryce brought eggs over on Thursday, saw it on the windowsill and laughed until she had to sit down. She said it looked like a small wooden man who had never once been told to stand still. I said that was the idea. I painted a shield on his chest from the lid of Mam's biscuit tin, red rings and a white star, and a little iron hammer I beat out of a bent gate hinge, which Dad pretended not to notice.

The thing you should know is that I finished the frame too. I plaited baling twine round the edge in an oval, the way you wove the willow crates, and I lettered a strip across the middle in your handwriting, copied off your last postcard: IT'S ONLY FOREVER, NOT LONG AT ALL. You always said that when you were leaving, like time was a coat you could shrug on and off. I did not think it was funny then. I think it might be now.

The postmaster says the parcel will reach you by February if the boats run. I have wrapped him in newspaper with a fist of green wool glued to one arm for luck. Keep him somewhere warm. Write back soon, even if it is only a line. The lambs are doing well, and the yard light, which you swore would never work again, came on last night when I flicked the switch. Yours, Nell.