Colour tattoo of a green ivy vine with a red ladybird across the top of a foot, in a botanical style.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Ivy vine and ladybird on a foot

Botanical · Other · Colour · Photo

A climbing ivy vine with green leaves in several shades winds across the top of a foot, with a red ladybird with black spots resting among the leaves. The linework is fine and the leaves are shaded with lighter and darker greens and yellow highlights. The vine runs diagonally from the ankle area towards the toes, set against pale skin and a white paper towel with a printed pattern in the background.

Botanical Other Vine Leaves Ladybird

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Nell,

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The rain has been coming sideways across the market since six, and I've sold exactly two pots of trailing ivy, both to a man who wanted them for his mother's grave and didn't want to haggle. Your stall would have done better. You always knew how to stand under the awning so the wet didn't drip on the cuttings.

I'm writing because of the ladybird. This morning, before the first customer, I found one walking up the inside of the cutting tray, slow as a clerk, its red wing cases dull with damp. I nearly flicked it onto the cobbles. Then I remembered Gran saying a ladybird that lands on you brings settled weather, and that you've to let it choose its own way out. So I held my palm flat under the ivy and waited. It climbed the vine, went round three leaves as if checking the sums, and settled on the one with the yellow edge.

It's still there, I think. I haven't moved the tray. Rain is running off the tarp in a sheet and the gulls are sulking on the bins, but that little beetle hasn't gone anywhere, and I can't bring myself to shift it.

Tomorrow the forecast says clearing. Come down if you can, bring the good kettle, and we'll see whether the ivy is still climbing or whether the ladybird has decided it likes it here. Love, Bea.