Watercolour compass and feathers on a leg

The brass compass you gave me is still rattling about in my coat pocket, so I've stopped pretending I'll lose it. Mr Aske at the chandler's says the needle has been pulled sideways by the iron in the harbour wall, and that a good compass is only as honest as the hand that sets it. I told him the hand was yours, and he laughed and sold me a new glass for it anyway.

The feathers are the thing I need to tell you about. Since the gale on Tuesday the cliff path below the Mere has been strewn with them, grey and blue and that peculiar green you only see on a jay's wing when the light catches it wrong. I've been gathering them into my hat like a child. Mrs Pryce thinks I'm mad. Perhaps I am. But each one points a different way when you lay it flat, and I've started drawing the lines between them on the back of the chart.

Come home before the thaw. The yellow rays I painted across the north wall of the kitchen have faded in the damp, and I want you there to put them right, because you always know which way the sun is going to come up. I have left the door on the latch and the kettle on the hob, cold, waiting for your hand.

Yours, always, Tom