Lotus mandala underbust tattoo

The Lotus Ballroom has finally had its roof mended, though you'd never know it from the ceiling. Mr Pargeter had the plasterer up there for three weeks, and what came down was the same rosette as before, a great star of petals with a bloom at its centre and a scalloped rim like the lace on Mother's good tablecloth. The drips still come through in wet weather. Mr Pargeter says he will leave them, because the dancers stop and look up when a drop lands, then laugh and carry on. I have started counting them. Forty-one on Saturday, which was a record.

Your gramophone record arrived, by the way, the foxtrot you hummed the morning you left. I played it for Dolly on the back step and she said it sounded like pennies being dropped into a tin. I told her that was the whole point of a foxtrot.

Last Thursday a sailor from the Cressida came in alone and asked me to dance. He trod on my hem so badly I had to unpick the ruined bit and sew it short. He kept glancing up at the rosette as though he could read something in it. When the music stopped he said his grandmother had worn a bloom just like that, and he had promised to come and see whether the hall was real. I told him it was real enough. He left a shilling under the saucer and a smudge of ink on my glove where he had pressed his thumb.

Come home soon and count the drips with me. I stopped at a hundred and six, which I suspect is cheating.

Love, Ivy