Lion cub with curved 'Remember Who You Are' script

The lioness has taken the lower courtyard again, and I have let her, because the stone cub on the north gate has finally slipped his plinth and is lying face down in the nettles. I went out at dawn with a bucket of lime and a trowel and found him curled on his side like a dog that has been told to wait. The motto is still cut above the arch in letters the rain has nearly eaten, REMEMBER WHO YOU ARE, though most of the letters are only shadows now, and the children who dare each other up the tower have started reading it as a joke.

You asked me on the telephone whether it was foolish to keep the place going for two people and a ghost. I said the ghost was the cheapest of the three. Your grandfather used to say the cub had been carved from the same block as the old chapel font, and that the masons ran out of money halfway through the mane, which is why he has one ear and a look of disappointment. I never believed him until I found the chisel marks under the moss, and a tin of plaster in the cellar with his name written on the lid in pencil.

I have set him back on his plinth with two rope slings and a borrowed winch from the farm at Haddow. He is heavier than either of us remembered. When the sun came round the wall he cast a long shadow over the moat, curled, patient, ready to stand, and I stood there with my hands on my hips feeling silly and certain at once.

Come home at Easter. Bring the good ladder. The gate needs a fresh coat, and he would like to be looked at.

Love, Nan