Painted traditional flash design of two red roses, a grey cross and yellow scrollwork framing a dark central panel, with no body placement shown.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Traditional roses and cross frame design

Traditional · Colour · Flash

A coloured, cut-out design board shows two red roses with green leaves and purple accents at the top corners, a grey cross set among yellow and blue scrollwork, and pink and purple flowers at the base. The outlines are bold and the shading is smooth, in a classic flash style. The central area is left as a dark, empty panel, and the piece sits on a wooden work surface.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Nell,

Keep reading

The oven has been warm since four and the flour is still cold in the sack, so I have a minute before the first tray. I've finally taken the chalkboard down from the back wall to scrub it. Dad's frame is still the prettiest thing in the shop: the roses at the top, that grey cross wedged in the scrollwork, the purple flowers pushed in at the bottom as if he couldn't decide where to stop. He painted it the summer you went off to Leeds, the summer he said a bakery without a proper sign was just a cupboard with bread in it.

The board has been blank since March. Nobody wants to be told the cob is a penny dearer, and the regulars know what's on the shelves anyway. Last night I found Mrs Okafor's pencil stub behind the till, and I sat with a cup of tea and tried to write the specials in the black space the way Dad used to. Every line looked like a list of things I'd failed to sell.

This morning Joe from the mill brought the sacks early. He stood in the doorway reading the empty panel the way you'd read a headstone, then said, "You'll fill that when you're ready." He asked for a split tin, and I told him it would have to wait for the oven, which made him laugh for the first time since his brother's funeral.

So here's the plan. I'm writing one word in the middle, small enough to rub out if I lose my nerve. Bread. Come and see if it's still any good.

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