Black line drawing of a tattoo design with an hourglass, three roses, a pocket watch and banners reading I wish time was on our side, in a traditional style.

Hourglass, roses and pocket watch tattoo design

Traditional · Black and grey · Flash

A black line drawing of a tattoo design showing an hourglass in the centre, with three roses, leaves and a pocket watch around it. Two curled banners carry the script I wish time was on our side, and beaded chains link the elements. The linework is clean and uniform with no shading or colour, and the composition fills the sheet in a symmetrical arrangement.

Traditional Hourglass Rose Pocket watch Banner Script Leaves Bead Flower

Find an artist for this

Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The sand timer on the drugs trolley is meant for the two-minute hand wash, but on nights I turn it for anything that needs counting: the gap between obs, how long the porter takes to answer a bell, how much longer the kettle at the end of the ward has left in it. The clock above the nurses' station has been wrong since March, so I lean on the glass instead.

Keep reading

Mr Pryce in bed six keeps his pocket watch on the blanket where he can reach it. Around one o'clock he asked me the time, and when I told him he tapped the case and shook his head. 'It runs slow,' he said. 'Maureen set it every Sunday for forty-one years, and I've never once got it right since.' He said he kept it slow on purpose, so there'd always be a reason to ask someone the time and hear a kind voice answer.

By four he was drifting, the watch loose in his palm. He pressed it into my hand and said, 'Keep it going for me till morning, love.' I wound it gently, the way he showed me, and listened to the small stubborn tick. Then I sat on the stool beside his bed and watched his breathing settle while the glass on the trolley ran down, grain by grain, without anybody counting.

At seven the day staff came in with their coats still cold. I gave the handover, turned the timer over one last time, and set the watch back on his blanket, still ticking, still wrong. He opened one eye and asked me the time. I told him, and for once it was close enough.