Neo-traditional tattoo of teal, plum and coral flowers with green leaves and buds across the outer thigh.

Colourful flower cluster on the thigh

Neo-trad · Thigh · Colour · Photo

A cluster of three large flowers, one teal, one plum with a yellow centre and one coral with a white and black centre, sits among green leaves and small buds. Bold black outlines define the petals and leaves, with solid colour fills and some shading within the petals. The design fills the upper thigh and is set against plain, lightly lit skin on a dark background.

Neo-trad Botanical Thigh Flower Leaves Bud

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Nell,

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The Sisters came in on Tuesday with the tide, all three boats, and Dad's hull is still wet from the hose. Mum has been in the back garden since dawn cutting the last of the sweet peas for the harbour chapel, and I have been told to say nothing about the mess on the step, which is mine. You will laugh. I spent the whole of Monday with a pot of plum paint trying to get the petals right on the wheelhouse door, because Skipper Haig wanted a bloom on the bulkhead like the ones in Grandma's biscuit tin, and I kept making them too round.

I want to tell you about the coral one, because that was the one I got wrong first. It came out sulking, like a tomato left on the windowsill. Mr Eckersley from the chandlery said the trouble was the black edges, that I had to draw them like the lead in a stained window and not like a child colouring inside the lines. So I went down to the quay at low water with a stick and drew three flowers in the wet sand, one teal, one plum, one coral, and the sea took two of them before I'd finished the third.

On Thursday the boats went out again, nine of them, and the wives stood on the wall waving at the wrong ones until someone counted properly. All nine came back, the way they always do, though the Sisters were late, and Dad stood at the end of the pier with his hands in his pockets and didn't say a word until he saw the paint on the wheelhouse was dry.

Come home at Easter. There's a bud on the hull that's just opening, and I think it's the first one that's come out right.

Love, Ruth