Hiya Bert

Love them, or loathe them, I found myself getting my 7th (and best of all) tattoo today, and it was a joke tag on facebook that brought it into being!

I was scrolling through one evening - whilst still on there; I'm on-and-off it more than a cowboy on a raging bull - when one of those "tag the 2nd/3rd/4th person on your list" crap things came up. This one came with a photo of a small dinosaur (see below) and said "you and the 3rd person on your @ list need to get this as matching tattoos". Bored I clicked @ in the comments only for my Number 1 to be the 3rd person, so I tagged her and said something about how we now needed to make it so; laughing I thought nothing of it, until she came back and said "let's do it". I'm still not sure if she was calling my bluff, or not. 

Scroll forward a year, and having dinner with her one evening I mentioned we'd never got around to getting them done. She said she wasn't actually keen on the dinosaur, but would genuinely love it if we were to get matching; the next thing she's on google and finds 2 matching that some people have had previously which were just perfect for us. The images she found one was holding a flower, the other a martini glass; she's not up for that so said she would have to have a coke can in her hand (she has a little bit of an addiction to the full-fat variety). I then mentioned a tattooist not too long a drive away, whose work I had seen on instagram that I loved (I wanted, and will now be getting her to do a cover-up on one of mine, and a pretty-up on another). Before I knew it Number 1 had messaged her, sent her the pics, she'd replied with a price; a date was set and biff, baff, bosh, we were off to get them done. 

Obviously there is the whole issue of copyright so our artist (and she truly is, in every sense of the word) took our ideas, put her own spin on it and came up with 2 matching images that are also slightly different; Number 1's has the coke can, mine the flower.  

At 9.30 this morning, around the same time I took the call 21 years ago, on this very day, to tell me the guy who told me the last time I'd seen him "you do realise you will marry me one day, don't you" had died at 21:30 the previous evening, I found myself picking up my Number 1 to take us both for our booking. It was her Mum who called me that morning to break the news to me. 10 years later (2 weeks short of being to the day) she herself passed away. The tats number 1 had chosen were what her Mum would have wanted us to have - if you believe in such a thing she probably instigated the whole thing, making sure what we had was what came up on the search - and as she'd always had to have her own tat on her bucket list (she'd never have gone through with it as her pain threshold was dire) they are also a quite fitting memorial to her. Sometimes things are just meant to be. 

It was the first time I've been along and got a tat at the same time as friend, and the first time I've watched someone else have one done. Watching the artist at work was a real joy - of course where possible I have always watched when my own have been done, but it was different watching it being done on someone else. Especially as she went first, so I thought if it didn't turn out right, or looked crap I could have changed my mind and not bothered! That was never going to happen but it was nice to know I had the option! 

I'm kinda glad we didn't go for the dinosaur, and 'yes' I do already have an alien on the inside of the same forearm. Number 1's Mum and I used to joke about abducted by the 'little green aliens with the big willies' so I had a little green alien (in board shorts) in her memory a decade ago. 

and so it begins... 

Outlining... 

Work in progress...

Meet Bert...