Vertical swirl vine with five-petal flowers

The lock keeper at Hatton Wharf says the river has gone brown with the rain, so we are tied up below the mill and I have had three days to do nothing but look at the cabin wall. You will laugh, but Dad let me paint the new panel beside the stove this time. He held the tin of ochre and I did the rest. I did the vine first, a long stem climbing from the bottom board to the roof, then the curls at the top where it doubles back on itself like a fiddlehead that cannot decide which way to go.

Uncle Ray came along the towpath on Tuesday and stood with his hands in his pockets, squinting at it. He said the spirals looked like the ones on the old chapel gate in Stourport, the ones you used to trace with your finger when the sermon ran long. Then he pointed at the flowers, five petals each, and asked why they had leaves for petals. I told him the leaves had got bored of being leaves. He did not laugh, but he did not argue either.

Last night the water rose a hand's width and the boat knocked against the bank all night, and I lay awake listening to it, sure the whole painting would be ruined by morning. It was not. The paint held, the stem still climbs, and this morning a moorhen was walking right along the gunwale as if it owned the place.

Love, Jo