Solar system tattoo on a shoulder

The Bramley lot came off the trees on Tuesday, and Dad has been up his ladder every evening since, counting what's left for the cider press. You'd laugh at him. He insists the sun has moved an inch south since August, and he's pinned a bit of chalk to the shed door to prove it. I told him the chalk moves more than the sun does when the wind gets in the doorway.

Last night I took the old brass telescope out past the fourth row, where the grass goes to seed and nobody mows. Saturn was low over the hedge, ringed and sulky, exactly as Grandma drew it on your birthday card. I kept thinking of that card, and how she pressed the little dots of Jupiter in with the end of a biro because she hadn't a fine pen. Mars was the colour of a Bramley skin, which is a very unscientific thing to say, but there it is.

Here's the odd part. Mrs Coker's boy came up with a jam jar of pips and asked if the planets were like apples, all hanging off the same branch. I said yes, and then felt silly, because he wanted an answer and I gave him a poem. He went home with a jar of stones instead. I hope he keeps counting.

Write when you can. The loft still smells of you.

Love, Maud