Colour tattoo of a cartoon bow in purple, blue and yellow with bold black outlines, on the skin of a limb.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Purple and blue bow tattoo on a limb

Traditional · Other · Colour · Photo

A cartoon-style bow with two looped wings and tails, filled with purple, blue and yellow ink. Bold black outlines and dark shading sit along the edges and folds, giving the wings a three-dimensional look. The bow is centred on a plain patch of skin, with denim visible at the left edge of the frame.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The ribbon came off the bread bin on a Tuesday, and by Thursday the whole crew had an opinion about it. Bosun Harkness said it made my galley look like a christening cake. I told him a pot handle needs something to tell it apart in the dark, and I wasn't about to explain that the yellow had been Mam's idea.

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When the Ada Rose took the big swell off Dogger Bank, the stockpot went over, then the kettle, then a tin of peaches that rolled the length of the floor as if it had somewhere to be. I spent ten minutes on my knees with the mop, swearing in a way Mam would have washed out with carbolic. Through all of it the bow stayed knotted to the rail above the stove, its blue loops and purple tails swinging while everything else slid about.

Nobody mentioned the ribbon again until we came in past the breakwater. Harkness stood in the doorway with his oilskins dripping and asked, quite politely, whether he could have it for his niece. I said he could have the peaches. I unpicked the knot, folded the ribbon into my apron pocket, and watched him go off grumbling about sentiment.

At the Hull market the next morning I bought a yard of satin from a stall run by a man who called me love and asked no questions. That afternoon I tied a new bow above the stove before anyone came back aboard, two loops, two tails, a yellow stripe down the middle, because a galley needs one thing that holds its shape while everything else goes over.

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