Small flower tattoo on an ankle

The big top came down on Tuesday, the last time, though Mr Farrow still insists we are only resting the canvas. You would have laughed at the lads folding it. Eleven men and a tractor to wrestle a tent that once needed forty. Duchess, the elephant, stood by the water trough all afternoon with her ears flat, as if she knew who was buying the field.

There is something you should see before the lorries leave. When we unloaded the feed sacks in March, one split behind the horse box and nobody bothered to sweep it up. I thought it was only oats. Then in July the whole gravel yard went gold, sunflowers taller than Pip the strongman, every one of them nodding toward the old ticket booth as if it owed them money.

Mrs Okafor, who has done the wire walk for thirty years, says they follow the light the way an audience does, and that the last act always gets the best seat. On Saturday night we ran the final show to four people and a dog. When the spotlight found the bare ring, one flower at the rope rail turned on its stalk and faced the empty benches until the generator gave out.

I am keeping a seed head in my coat pocket. Write when you reach Lisbon and tell me whether the sea looks as stubborn there.

Love, Mags