Mandala design with dotted drop pendants

The rose window is finished, or it would be if the glazier in Hexham had not spent a week arguing with the bishop's clerk about the drops. He wants them plain. I drew them dotted, a row of tiny points running out from each circle like thread someone has let go of, and I told him a pendant should look like it is still falling. He called that fanciful. I called it arithmetic, which it is, though I suspect he heard it as a rebuke.

Start from the centre, always. That is the only rule I have ever trusted. Put a small ring down, then eight petals around it, each scalloped so the edge keeps turning back on itself, then sixteen diamonds pushed out between them, and every diamond takes a dot at its point. Keep the pen light on the second layer or the petals crowd the diamonds and the whole thing goes muddy, as the ink did on the Kendal sample. I have enclosed the sheet. Look at the lower arcs. Count the drops if you like. There are nine on the left and nine on the right, and they never once touch.

I think about the old compass-maker at Kendal who taught me this. He said a symmetrical thing is only honest if you can fold it in half and find nothing hiding on the far side. I have folded this one a hundred times on the kitchen table, and it holds.

Write back and tell me whether the wind has finished with the ridge road yet. Your loving brother, Ned.