Small feather tattoo on upper arm

You will not believe what the jay did this morning. I was pegging sheets out behind the forge when it came down off the beech at the wood's edge and landed on the wall, neat as a letter through a door, and then sat there looking at me with one eye as if I owed it money. I did not argue. Mr Hebden says jays only want the acorns I've been hiding in my apron pockets, but he is wrong about most things before breakfast.

The feather it dropped is the reason I am writing. It was black at the tip and a dusky blue near the quill, and when the wind came off the fells it lifted and turned over twice before settling in the lane by the stile. I picked it up and have been carrying it about ever since, which you will say is daft at my age. I've tucked it into the Bible at Ezekiel, the only place I could think of that nobody would disturb.

When I went to the post office this afternoon, Mrs Carrow's girl was at the counter writing price cards with a fine nib, one stroke at a time, each line tapering to nothing. She said her grandmother kept a wren's feather in a matchbox for fifty years and she'd never understood why until now. I told her the jay had been by. She laughed and said it was a sign, and I said signs are only what you go looking for when you're already lonely.

Anyway. Come up at Whitsun and bring the good thread. I will show you the feather, and you can tell me whether I am being a foolish old woman.

Love, Edie