Colourful neo-trad tattoo of a teal spotted cat head with open mouth and paws beside a red balloon, on the calf.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Cat head and red balloon on a calf

Neo-trad · Calf · Colour · Photo

A cat's head with a teal and green spotted face, pink ears and an open pink mouth sits above two green paws and a red balloon with a wavy string. The bold black outlines and saturated colour blocks with soft highlights give the piece a playful, cartoon-like feel. The tattoo is shown up close on a calf against a light blue towel, with the design filling most of the frame.

Neo-trad Calf Cat Balloon Paw String

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tom,

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You'll not believe what the cat did at Stourport. We tied up above the lock on Saturday and Dad let Peggy have a red balloon from the man with the donkey, and she held the string so tight her knuckles went white. Then the wind came off the water and the thing slipped its hold. Biscuit saw it go before any of us did. He went up the gunwale like he'd been fired from a gun, paws out, mouth wide open, yowling at the sky as if the balloon owed him rent.

He didn't catch it, obviously. Nobody catches anything on a canal. But he sat on the cabin roof for an hour after, staring up with those yellow eyes, and every time a gull drifted past he hissed at it as though it had stolen his property.

Peggy cried, then stopped, then asked Dad whether balloons go to heaven or just to Worcester. Dad said Worcester, which made her laugh, and then she said the cat was the only one brave enough to chase it.

This morning Dad found the string snagged on the lock gate, the end still curled in that wavy way, and he tied it to the tiller so we'd remember. Biscuit has been sleeping on it ever since.

Love, Nell