Flash design of three purple and green thistles tied with a purple and cream ribbon, above a cream banner reading Sassy Lassie, on a black background.

Three thistles with ribbon and banner

Botanical · Colour · Flash

A botanical design of three thistles on a bundle of green leaves with curling stems, bound at the base with a purple and cream ribbon. A cream scroll banner arches across the top with the words SASSY LASSIE in purple capitals. The linework is bold and flat with simple fills, set centrally on a black background.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Morag,

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You will be wanting to know about the thistles, and I will tell you straight, the purple ones have taken the whole back bank since you left. Your grandfather would have had them out with a spade by now, swearing at every prickle, but I have left them be. The goldfinches come for the seed heads, and the bees are that busy you can hear them from the kitchen step.

I went to the Saturday market in Lochgilphead with the good secateurs wrapped in a tea towel, meaning to cut a bunch for the church. Mrs Dunlop saw me at the gate and asked what I was doing with a fistful of nettles. I told her they were thistles, and she said that was the sort of thing a sassy lassie would say, and laughed till she had to sit on the wall. Then she tied a cream and purple ribbon round them for me, the same colours as the Macneil tartan, which she said was cheek on my part since we have no right to it.

So I have three stems in the blue jug on the windowsill now, leaves curling every way like they are arguing about the light. I thought of you when I tied them, the way you used to walk up the lane with your chin out, daring the sheep to look at you.

Come home at the weekend if you can. Bring the boots. The back bank needs a proper fight, and I am too old to win it on my own.

Love, Nan

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