Peach rose tattoo on a forearm

The Pemberton roses came out peach this year, and Mr Pemberton says it is the new boiler, not the cutting he took from his mother's wall in 1921. I have decided to believe him. It is easier than admitting the bloom in the back bed has been waiting all summer for someone to stop what they were doing and look at it properly.

The smoke from the coal yard drifts over the glasshouse roof most afternoons, grey at the edges and green where it catches the sycamores, and on Tuesday it wound round the bush as if someone had brushed it on with a wet hand. Mr Pemberton called it weather. I called it a nuisance, and then, when I went out to sweep the path, I stood there a good while with the broom in my hands.

He cut the best one on Thursday. He did not make a speech. He wrapped the stem in a page of the Courier and put it into my hands at the gate, the way Dad used to hand over his pipe when he had decided a thing was finished. I asked what it was for. He said it was for the train, because I was going to Hull on Saturday and a girl should not arrive anywhere empty handed.

So it is in the washbasin now, with two inches of water and a sugar lump, and the petals open a little more each morning. The outer ones are turning the colour of a good apricot and the heart is nearly red. I have pressed one between the pages of this letter so you can see it for yourself. Do not let it blow out of the window when you open the envelope.

Love, Ada