A Different Kind of Tattoo...

This post is going to be mostly pictures, so I decided to put them all at the end, and this time I left them a bit smaller – that way they take up less room, but you can click on one to open the pictures, and scroll through to view them better if you like :)

Earlier this week, Adam and I went to Edinburgh on the train, and stayed overnight to watch the Edinburgh Tattoo. This little trip was courtesy of Adam’s dad, who paid for it as a combination early 30^th birthday present for Adam, and farewell gift for both of us.

The train ride up to Edinburgh only took 3 hours, and went by very pleasantly in First Class!!! We were very lucky to travel this way, thanks to a combination of Adam’s dad’s generosity, and our railcards making it much cheaper. It was my 3^rd time in First Class; the first time being when Adam whisked me off to propose to me, and the second time being a weird anomaly with ticket prices when I was going somewhere, and the First Class ticket was only £5 more than the Standard ticket. As the food and drink is included in a First Class ticket, it actually worked out cheaper to do this!

Edinburgh was very busy at it was Festival time, so we didn’t sight-see, but rather soaked up the atmosphere from the Fringe events going on around us, and enjoyed local beers :)

This year’s Tattoo has a theme of Our Home, Friends and Family, “As Scotland prepares to welcome the world as part of the exciting year of Homecoming, hundreds of Commonwealth participants are set to play a part in this year's Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo. Music, dance and precision display with the Massed Pipes and Drums, the Bands of Her Majesty’s Royal Marines, cultural troupes, singers and the poignant refrain of the Lone Piper against the stunning backdrop of Edinburgh Castle.”   There was a strong theme throughout the Tattoo of presenting the performers in terms of their relationship with Scotland and the Scots who set out to faraway lands in the past, and it was pretty interesting! 

My favourite parts were the world’s only steel marching band, from Trinidad and Tobago, and also the Maori performance. I was always fascinated by Maoris when I was little – I loved the Haka that they perform before rugby matches, I love the idea of New Zealand as a country, and I was always utterly fascinated by the amazing feats of exploration, discovery and settling civilisations in new lands that was done by the Polynesian people all over the southern oceanic area.  So amazing! I was very excited when I spotted some Maori performers as we were walking into the performance area to get to our seats. I asked them if I could take their photo, and they very kindly pulled faces for me, and even sneaked me a photo with them! (I do wish I looked better in photos! The earlier rain ruining my hair didn’t help either…)

The Tattoo is all about the precision marching, in some cases tribal or native dancing, and of course the music, so still photos can’t really do it justice. Also it was dark with odd lighting coming from directly opposite me, which really didn’t help with getting decent photos! But here is the best I could manage :)

A Few Things...

A few things for a brief catch up :)

First up, this tickled me a bit – my Pinterest Weekly email a little while ago included a link to one of my own Pinterest boards!

Last week, on my way to stay with my mum for my brother’s wedding, I got my smallest tattoos touched up by Jessi. They are now a bit more unique and colourful - although a little difficult to get a decent photo of when there’s no-one to help, I had to stand like Charlie Chaplin for the 'after' photo! (I know it must by now sound as if I have a lot of tattoos, but honestly you can't see any when I'm dressed - even in shorts and sleeveless top! Except if I wear flip flops or sandals, in which case you can just see these two teeny ones)

Before...

...After (the colouring will soften with healing)

I took lots of crochet away with me – some to give away, like the Mumbles Ripple and the Glastonbury Blanket; some just to show my mum so she gets to see what I’m up to, like the Cuddly Hexagons; and finally I also took her blanket beginnings (previously mentioned here and here) in order that she could make sure that she liked the design, and so I could continue working on it.

There wasn’t much time for crocheting in the end, as The Cake had to take priority, but before I we got started on anything cake-related I was able to have a silly play around with the existing crochet bits…

I thought these flower motifs were like water lilies on the Mumbles...

I think I prefer them in the orchard :)

I joined the local library yesterday – I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of doing this sooner! I’m a bit of a bookaholic, but currently all but very few of our book collection is boxed up and in storage.

It was great fun to go through the book shelves, searching for my next few reads, and to then walk out with them without paying! I felt really naughty for walking out without paying – it’s so long since I used a library, and the feeling was enhanced as this library has a computerised issuing service. You scan your card, put your pile of books in a hatch of the machine, and then it registers them and you are free to go, so you don’t even have to go through the librarian to take your books! I have to say, I kind of missed the whole taking the ticket and stamping everything process that you used to get in libraries…

Slight Edit here as I just finished the book! The book I took out to read yesterday - and have already finished! - is this Neil Gaiman book, The Ocean at The End of The Lane. I really enjoyed it, as you can tell by how quickly I read it. I might try to do a bit of a review of it, as I want to get better at this sort of thing - I’ll post that if I get round to it, and if it's any good! The book, however, was brilliant!

I also discovered this bit of the library while I was there:

A whole big section of craft books! Brilliant!! I bought a few fairly dud crochet books when I was learning, but now I can borrow them, and then only buy the ones I think are worth it! Brilliant!! I took out ‘75 Crocheted Floral Blocks: Beautiful Patterns to Mix and Match for Throws, Accessories, Baby Blankets and More’ by Betty Barnden, and I have to say this is looking like something I might like to buy… I haven’t had a chance to play around with the patterns yet of course, but already a few designs have leapt out at me as things to have a go with!

Finally, I’m heading off to Snowdonia today, to go to Plas y Brenin again (I have been before here and here). This time round I’m going as a ‘mock student’ for one of their instructor courses taking place tomorrow, and I’m hoping to get some rock climbing done as part of that – I say “hoping” as the weather seems to be very damp and rainy again! 

After Snowdonia, I will be heading off south to Somerset again, to go to a bit of a cider festival with the other half and a few friends. It will be taking place on the pier at Weston-super-Mare, and will include a gig by The Wurzels, so I’m not totally sure what to expect from all that! At least I can combine it with seeing family and friends though, which is getting increasingly important as time-before-Oz gets shorter!

Bank Holiday Inking

I’m back from a lovely, but rather soggy, bank holiday weekend :) 

I will write more about the rest of the weekend later, once I’ve gotten round to uploading the photos, but I do have some bits I can share now.

I am halfway through a new book, thanks to a recommendation from Niki Murray on my previous post about books, and I’m really enjoying it. Hopefully I can do another write-up about these books once I’ve read some more – I’m not great at writing about books, but I’m hoping that practice will make improvements!

Currently reading

Also, the Glastonbury is finished!!! Yay!! I’m very happy with it, but I have had no opportunity for photos, so the proper post will have to wait – boo!! :(

Instead though, I can reveal my new ink! I am really really happy with it. It was once again done by the lovely Jessi at Black Rabbit Tattoo Collective in Newbury, Berkshire. Jessi’s artwork is fantastic, and she has a great technique with tattooing. My previous piece from her healed so well and so quickly, and while the watercolour technique does mean that it’s not tattooed so heavily and therefore the skin has less damage to it than a heavily shaded or coloured piece, I also think that her personal tattooing technique must be really good.    

On this occasion, my best friend and I got matching tattoos of an origami swan line drawing, with watercolour splashes on it. Jessi’s ability to create a watercolour effect with tattoos just blows me away! She is so talented :)

We chose the swan as, in my friend’s words, “Swans mate for life, and we’re mates for life!”  [I know that when swans mate it has a different meaning, but we had been searching for an idea, and by a long process of planning we decided that swans were the right image :)  ] We chose the origami as we both liked the style of the line drawing, and we both liked the watercolour effect, and so an idea was born! 

So here is the stencil on me, the red lines are where she freehand drew on guide lines for the watercolour elements:

Here is the work in progress on me….

And on my friend….

And here is the finished result!

With an extra close-up of mine, as it is a bit obscured by my top in the previous pic:

These pictures were taken straightaway, so they are still a bit red and swollen, but they will settle down beautifully! I will see my friend again in a couple of weeks, so I’m hoping we’ll remember to get another photo of them as they are more healed. We are both so happy with the results! So happy in fact that I already have my next appointment booked in – I have 2 very small black tattoos, and I’m going to have some splashes of colour added to them to brighten them up and make them more unique. I have to go to Newbury next week anyway, so it would be a shame not to make the most of the opportunity ;)

An old pic, but the subject of my next appointment...