Lion and lotus flowers on upper arm

The big top came down at Clevedon in the rain, and the lion has been quiet since. Rajah won't touch the mutton the cook brings him. He just sits with his great head turned towards the field gate, as if the wind is bringing him news from somewhere. Mr Ferris says he's pining. I say he's a lion who has been moved two hundred miles in a crate, which would sulk anyone.

The odd thing is what I found in Dad's old ledger this morning. Pressed between the pages for the spring takings were two lotus petals gone the colour of weak tea, and a cherry blossom stuck to the paper with dried sap. Nobody on this fair grows either. I think they came off the flower seller's barrow in Weston, the one with the crooked awning who never let anyone haggle.

So last night I took them down to Rajah's pen and laid them in the straw by the bars. He breathed over them for a long while. Then he got up, slow as a tent pole, and walked the length of the pen with his mane brushing the iron, and stopped where the moths gather under the lamp. Three small dark butterflies lifted off the bulb and settled on the bars beside his face, as if they had been waiting for their cue.

I don't know what it means. Ferris says it's the damp and the moths are just moths. But this morning Rajah ate every scrap of his breakfast and then sneezed at me, which I'm told is a lion's way of saying good morning. I've enclosed one of the petals. Come up to Dorset in August. There's a place for you on the high wire if you still want it, and Rajah has asked after you, or at least he's stopped looking at the gate.

Love, Iris