Lion portrait on a forearm

The gatehouse at Carrick Ellan is finally scaffolded, and I have spent three days on the ladder looking a lion in the face. Mr Dunmore, who has mended this wall since before I was born, says the mason who carved it in 1340 used a point and nothing else, pricking the stone in tiny dots until the eyes came up out of the grey like something waking. Every hollow of the mane follows the same logic: zigzags for the wind, rows of dots for the rain that got in, feathers cut so close together you can barely slide a fingernail between them.

Dunmore let me try the old way with a pointed chisel on a scrap block. My first lion looked like a dog that had been left out in the yard. I kept going until the whiskers stopped looking like scratches. Last night I found the mason's mark tucked under the lintel, a small chevron with a dot beside it, and I realised it was the same pattern Granddad used to draw in the margins of our shopping lists.

Dunmore says the stone will need repointing before winter and that I should stop trying to be clever and simply be patient. I think he means it kindly. Tomorrow I'll go up at first light and start on the left cheek, where the rain has worn the dots nearly smooth, and see whether I can bring back the lion's temper without losing the sweetness of the rest of him.

Love, Tom