Browsing Tag

Tattoo

Missing out

I’d planned to do loads of things in July. What I hadn’t planned on, was getting ill and having to cancel pretty much all of them.

At the beginning of the month I had my penultimate tattoo appointment, at least for the near future. Valerie, who does my tattoos won’t be working from September for 3 months at least, so with a few intensive 4-hour sessions, it brought to a natural conclusion the work we have been doing over the past year. My sleeve is nearly finished, just one gap to fill and a few touch-ups and embellishments to do on my back and we’re done. I didn’t set out to have a full sleeve, but once the tops of my arms were done, it seemed like a natural extension – and I love it. More about that once it’s finished.

I had the tattoo on the Friday and started feeling under the weather over the weekend, and right into the week, getting worse as the week went on. I had a working dinner with colleagues at Iberica on the Wednesday night, and just thought it was a touch of flu/general under-the-weather-ness. By the time Friday came, I knew it was more than that.

I had tickets to the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition on the Friday afternoon, and despite feeling pretty rotten and having developed a hacking cough, I took myself off for a look round. However, by then I knew that I was ill so I cancelled my plans for the weekend, as I was due to attend a two-day course and I knew there was no way I could get through that. I’d booked an Introduction to Coaching course with The Coaching Academy and was really, really looking forward to it so was pretty upset to cancel. Luckily they’ve let me rearrange to a date in August, so all is not lost.

I was also booked on a British Red Cross First Aid Course for last week, a 3-day intensive training session that results in an accreditation as a registered first-aider. We needed someone at work to volunteer and I figured it’s a valuable skill to have. Not only that, it might help me with some of my squeamish issues about the body! However, by Monday morning it was clear all was not well. I could barely leave the bed or sofa and had no energy and a worrying cough.

Looking up all the symptoms and advice online it seemed that I had viral bronchitis. The advice is plenty of fluids, ibuprofen/paracetamol and rest – oh and that you don’t need to see the doctor for a viral condition. So I stayed on the sofa for 3 days flat. Well, not flat actually, as the cough meant I couldn’t actually lay flat without almost choking to death. At one point, I was really worried that I couldn’t breathe and although in some ways I felt a bit better, by Thursday it was obvious I needed to see the doctor. A phone-call to the surgery got me a telephone consultation and a same-day appointment. It’s the first time in all the time I’ve lived here that I’ve needed to use my local doctor and I was mightily impressed with the speed. The phone consultation is such a good idea to triage people.

The doctor pretty much immediately diagnosed a chest infection and prescribed antibiotics. She scared me a bit saying if it got worse over the weekend they’d look to take me into hospital for IV antibiotics, but by Saturday morning I was feeling better than I had all week – coughing less, though still badly at night – and was even up to a trip outside the house, my first in 8 days other than the cab to the doctors. Never has a trip to the supermarket seemed so exciting!

But there’s one other thing I had to cancel. Today I was meant to be doing the Race for Life with my two friends Mel and Katie. I was really looking forward to it and was sure I’d be fine by then. But all I managed today was a brief trip to Rottingdean to get some sea air for an hour and more resting on the sofa.

I’m desperate to get back to work and get back on with life. The First Aid course has been rescheduled to October, so I haven’t lost the opportunity and there’s always next year for the Race for Life. Hopefully, if I can now recover properly with the drugs doing their job, I’ll at least be able to go to the Friday Summer Party for a few hours at the end of the week. Fingers crossed.

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23rd July 2017

Design

Tattoo: First session of 2017

That red heart. Yeah, that hurt. But the girl head is fully finished and it’s only the painful fleshy bits to go! I’m really pleased with how this is coming along, only a few more months to go!

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6th February 2017

Design

Right arm tattoo

Continued the final piece of the tattoo I’ve been working on for 3 years. This is part of the top of my right arm, and only shows a small part of the rest of the whole outline we did in one session at Modern Classic. I’m sure there will be some more line work to do, once we see how it’s looking – blossom’s and flowers probably.

The piece consists of a beautiful girl head, an hour glass and this heart with a scroll, which is pretty much a direct copy of a tattoo my Dad had when he was 16. I can’t wait to see it all coloured, it’s going to look outrageously good. The only question is, do I conintue with my forearms, but for now there’s a bit of a wait until the next session.

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8th November 2016

Design

Tattoo – phase 3

I’ve started the last ‘phase’ of my back/arm piece. The design for the right arm is going to include a gorgeous girl-head, along with a modern take on my Dad’s old heart tattoo and an hour glass. Joined together with flowers and ribbons. At least that’s what it is planned to be – the designs always change and morph as we go along, which is one of the great things about not starting out with a fixed plan.

Just look at those eyelashes…

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28th August 2016

Design

Taking Care of Business

Friday in Manhattan was just as gorgeous, weather-wise, so we once again set off on foot, scoring a fantastic turkey sandwich from a deli on the way. We headed down towards the Flatiron district, through Bryant Park and sat outside a café by the Flatiron in the sun. We then carried on walking, all the way down to the lower east side, stopping to share fish and chips at a really nice place called Bar Fish.

Once we were near New York Adorned we nipped into a Cuban bar for a couple of fortifying vodka shots. I’m not used to being tattooed without heavy-duty painkillers but I didn’t have any – luckily the spot we’d chosen on the ankle turned out to not be painful at all.

We had chosen a classic TCB design, with the lightening bolt and a thick outline. Madge had taken it from a picture of a replica Elvis Presley pistol, cleaning it up a bit in Photoshop and removing the trademark! It was a simple stencil but really, really relied on the artist having a steady hand, as the lines are dead straight.

Madge went first, while I sat and watched. It took longer than I expected, but it was soon my turn to hop up on the bed. The tattoo didn’t hurt at all – a tiny pinch near the ankle but apart from that, plain sailing. It’s very, very different to everything else I have – which is why I really like it. It’s got hard edges and it’s very graphic, in a way it kind of jars – everything else is organic and natural and fading, so it stands out. I’m really pleased with it.

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11th March 2016

Design

Tattoo: Left arm

Left arm finished 🙂

It took a lot of work and a lot of time, but I am over the moon with the final result. Just one more arm to go!

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31st January 2016

Design

Teeth ‘n’ Tattoos

Oh man, what a week. Mostly consisting of pain.

A couple of weeks ago I started to get a nagging toothache. Well, more of a gum-ache really, which of course I ignored. I eventually found a dentist and made an appointment, and was told it was an abscess in the gum, and needed antibiotics to treat it. And what’s more, the antibiotics were strictly no alcohol, for five whole days. Five days. I can tell you, the one thing you want when you’ve got a gum abscess pulsating away in your mouth is a drink!

Anyway, I took the antibiotics, and the five days booze free, literally on the chin. The pain seemed to diminish a bit, but it, and the lump, were still there. So back off to the dentist I went, to be told that the tooth was too damaged to save and that the bugger would have to come out.

I’ve had teeth out before, and to be honest, other than the injection bit, it’s bearable. You just need to take an ipod with some loud music, wait for the anaesthetic to take hold and it’s usually over with pretty quickly. So while I knew it wasn’t going to be pleasant I was kind of OK with it. And i’d booked a late appointment so I could go straight home after.

Well. This tooth did not want to come out. It took a 40-minute struggle, some pretty horrible dentistry and a few tears to get it out of my head. I won’t go into details, for the squeamish, but just to say it wasn’t pleasant. Or quick. Or like any other tooth I’ve ever had out. And it’s left a bloody great big hole.

That was on Monday. On Tuesday I felt like I’d been hit by a truck, and should probably have worked from home. But I dosed up on ibuprofen and went it. I was pretty much rattling. Then on Wednesday I was booked in for a tattoo.

We’ve finally finished phase 1 – the backpiece. This is the cover-up and central piece to the tattoos that are going to go over the shoulder and down my arms (to elbow). It was a relief to get it finished, and I had some pretty strong painkillers to get me through – which pretty much stopped me thinking about the tooth thing for a couple of hours.

We finished the heart around the skull and just for good measure, went back over the cover-up (ouch) as Valerie wasn’t quite happy with the colour. There’s a few cherry blossom left to place but they will be done last.

So, now we move on to my arms, and I’m actually pretty excited. Roll on mid-August.

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17th July 2015

Design

New tattoo – work in progress

At the back end of last year I started on a new tattoo. I’ve gone back to see Valerie Vargas again, as the leg piece she did was so stunning, so she was obviously my first choice. Since I had my leg done, she has moved from Frith Street Tattoo to set up her own shop called Modern Classic, in Fulham.

I went with the intention to get two arm pieces, top of bicep only, and was looking for ideas based on a mood board I’d put together. When we chatted it through we agreed that it would be really nice if we actually started in the middle of my back and brought the piece out from there. The arms won’t be symmetrical in content, but starting in the centre of the back will give them balance, and obviously allow for a much larger piece. We had the small matter of a cover-up to do on a butterfly I’d had tattooed on my honeymoon in LA, but luckily it wasn’t a big piece.

We agreed on a base design for the back, and agreed how to deal with the cover up, though what I love most about working with Valerie is that we always let the piece come alive and take on its own feel as the work starts. For instance with my leg, we ‘grew’ the design over time, adding more elements to really bring it to life. People often find it strange that I don’t go into the tattoo with a clear idea of what I want – but that’s the point of working with an artist like Valerie – I want her to guide the piece and recommend what will look good – she’s the expert and it’s really important to me that the tattooer likes the piece too. Although it’s going on my body, it feels like a partnership to get to the best design ideas. Much as in my day job I know that the best design often comes from collaboration and feedback.

The work on this piece started with one 4-hour session in November, to get the outline down.

Even after the first session I knew it was going to be stunning, but I’m not going to lie, I was really shocked how much the back hurts! I don’t know if I am particularly sensitive but I’m really struggling with this piece, particularly the area right down the centre of my spine. Weirdly too, my right hand side reacts very differently to my left in terms of pain. The right is much worse – I wonder if it’s the nerve damage from the Shingles I had in the winter?

Other than doing my wedding ring, all of my tattoos have been painful, but the back really does feel like a battle. Poor Valerie is literally having to pin me down and we’ve cut the rest of the back sessions down to 2 hours. When we get on to the arms we’ll go back up to 3. I’m not expecting them to be easy, but I’m really hoping they’ll be less painful than the back piece!

We did the second session at The Brighton Tattoo Convention – which was interesting.

Bit weird being tattooed with people taking photo’s of you, but it was a good experience and I got to see lots of different work being done too. The last session was 2 weeks ago and that’s pretty much healed now. I’ve currently got another 10 hours booked through to August, and we should get to my arms in July I hope – it would be good to have one finished while it’s still Summer. Just the pesky painful back to get through first!

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30th April 2015