Small mandala tattoo on the lower abdomen

Frost came down hard on Tuesday and I thought the dahlias were finished, but Dad went out at first light with the fork and turned up the tubers. They are fat as walnuts, peach and rust, packed in sawdust in the paper sacks he keeps under the potting bench. He says the old ones always know when to sleep and when to wake. I told him that's what he says about the hens too, and he didn't deny it.

The kitchen window has grown the same pattern as Mum's tea tin lid, the one with the teal ring and the ring of petals. Every morning there is a new frost on the glass, bloomed out from the corner in eight directions, and I trace it with my thumbnail before the Aga warms it away. You would have liked it. You always said the best things came out of being perfectly balanced and a little bit stubborn.

Thursday the lane drifted shut, so the post van didn't come and the bins stayed full. I spent the afternoon in the greenhouse with the paraffin heater ticking, sorting seed trays. Under the staging I found the envelope you sent from Leeds, with a pressed marigold still inside it, and I've put it in the tin with the frost-star lid where Mum kept the buttons.

Come at Easter. The tubers will be sprouting by then, and I'll show you the new bed I've marked out with string.

Love, Jo