Outlined heart on a shoulder

The gulls have been fighting over the bait boxes since Tuesday and your father would have had something to say about it. Mrs Ferris came round yesterday with a tin of shortbread and the news that the Kestrel is in for her new engine at last, so I expect the boats will be out by the weekend. I have sold the spare nets to the Pryce lad for twelve pounds, which is robbery, but he has a baby coming and I could not haggle with that.

The hooks came back from the chandler's in Hartlepool. I put the box on the dresser where you left it. There were forty of the long-shanked ones, the sort your grandfather swore by, and I counted them twice because I kept hoping one would be missing so I would have a reason to write. None were. Mr Abbott says the cod are running well past the buoy, so do not let anyone tell you the sea is empty.

I have drawn you something, though you will think me soppy. I bent a spare hook in the vice and looked at it a long while until it made a heart. Then I carried it up to the lamp room, where the beam goes round every eleven seconds, and I thought of how you used to say the light was only ever looking for ships that were already coming home.

Come back by the Sunday if the weather allows. The kettle will be on, and I will not ask you anything about the crossing.

Love, Mum