Wildflower sprig on the thigh

I have the kettle on and the window open, so you'll forgive the smudges. The lift was out again this morning, which meant I climbed eleven floors with the shopping and a bag of compost for the tub Mr Okafor left on the landing. He says he is not a gardener, but he has been coaxing that lavender since March, so I think he is one and too modest to admit it.

I'm enclosing something you won't believe came from a council estate. There's a strip of waste ground behind the car park where the fence has rusted through, and last Sunday I went down with a carrier bag and came back with black-eyed Susans, a handful of purple spires, the little pink ones that look like pipe cleaners, and two daisies that had no business being so white beside a bin. I pressed them between the pages of the atlas you gave me when Dad went. He never once opened that atlas, but he kept it on the hall table for thirty years, so I suppose it deserves some use.

Yesterday a boy from flat 4 knocked to ask what I was doing with flowers in the newspaper. I told him they were for remembering, and he said you can't remember things with flowers. I said to wait until the pages were dry and then he could tell me what I'd forgotten. He's coming back on Saturday, and I've told him to bring his own sprig.

Write soon, and tell me the sea is as grey as you promised.

Love, Ruth