Infinity symbol with birds and watercolour splashes

The snow came down on Tuesday and hasn't let up, so I'm writing this at the scrubbed table in the back kitchen of the Drover's Rest, where Maud keeps the range going for the two of us still stranded here. The good paper ran out at Christmas, so you'll have to make do with the back of a menu. Lamb shank, if you're wondering.

At dusk the starlings came over the marsh in a great loose ribbon, bending and folding back on themselves the way they did when we were children on Aunt Ivy's step. Maud says they're the same flock that arrived in October, going round the same figure of eight over the reeds every evening, never once landing. I told her that sounded like being stuck, and she said it sounded like having somewhere to be. Aunt Ivy would have liked that answer. She kept a tin of watercolours on the windowsill, and when it rained the colours ran into one another on the paper until nothing was just one thing.

The landlord's boy has gone to Leeds, so it's only the two of us and a stubborn dog. The road should open by the end of the month. I'll come home then, and I'll bring the tin.

Look up at six, love, if the sky clears. Count the birds as they turn. You'll see them loop back to the same place again and again, and you'll know I'm somewhere under them, watching too.

Your loving Gran