Morning folks. So the tattoo I’ve been thinking about on and off for a while finally came in to being. Weirdly, I had bought a print from Anthropology that I loved. A little deer surrounded by toadstools called “Fawngi” so cute! Planned to add it to my woodland creaturey themed gallery wall in France (when we eventually paint it). I noted the name of the artist, Becci, and followed her on Instagram. Then she posted something and I realised she was in Leeds. Then I saw that she was a tattoo apprentice. Then I saw that the tattooist that did my Robin, Ruth, was following her stuff. Then it only turns out that Ruth taught Becci. Talk about small world!

I was drawn to her stuff because of the vintagey vibe and it reminded me so much of illustrations in the books I loved as a kid, especially the Pip the Pixie series by Enid Blyton. (We have been known to refer to Brussel Sprouts as fairy cabbages in our family as a result of these books – but then we are a bit strange….) Who better to recreate a Velveteen Rabbit, keeping him shabby and tattered and beautiful.

Who’s not familiar with the Velveteen Rabbit? He’s a little stuffed rabbit made of Velveteen that is given to a young boy as a present and goes largely ignored. The other toys in the nursery talk at night about how if they are loved enough that they could become real. One night, his nurse can’t find the boy’s favourite toy and so she puts him to bed with the rabbit. He becomes his favourite toy spending the summer with him and going on picnics in the woods, where he meets real rabbits and can’t understand why he can’t run and hop like them. The little boy gets very ill, scarlet fever or something, and the doctor recommends that everything he has been in contact with is burned. This includes his beloved, but now shabby little Rabbit. As he is in a sack waiting for his horrible end he reflects on his life and is visited by a fairy who grants him his wish to be real and he hops off into the forest with the real rabbits. A year later he goes back to look for his little boy and he recognises his old Velveteen rabbit in the rabbit he sees in the garden. (Cue loud ugly crying). “Love makes you real”

I like to think my tattoo is just before the fairy turns him into a real rabbit. But then, I am rather silly. He means a lot to me.

He’s healing beautifully but I have been suffering with a pretty horrid heat rash probably as a result of over blathering coconut oil on everything we think but some steroid cream from the doctors is slowly fixing this and I can stop googling “how to know if you have gangrene”.

So Sis, should you read this on holiday with the Mothership I give you permission to tell her. 😀 I’m sure I’ll hear the moment that you do from here. Please just remind her that I’m 42 next week and the youngest is contractually obliged to do all the stupid stuff. Fact. Xxxx 

TTFN x