Aarayan's Day of Pain (Part 2)

As we headed off in the car to my tattoo appointment I yammered on about my trip Up North, my parents' new puppy, Meg, the difficulties involved in rehoming my many pets while Kal told me his various tales of derring-do in return. To be fair, his stories won.

Kal saw me into my tattoo appointment at 1pm at Venus Flytrap in Edinburgh and had intended to drop in and out, keep me company and consider whether or not he fancied a tattoo of his own. Unfortunately he was shooed away by what I assume was the apprentice, so went off to wander around, drink coffee and stress about his Paramedic interview for a couple of hours assuming I'd be done by 3pm, while I expected him to come back and see me at 3pm.

Calum the tattoist had drawn up a transfer based on the original design I'd given him (which I nicked of the tinternet - here is is on your left) but when I saw it I didn't like it. This tiger is more feline, slinky and fluid, whereas his was stockier, more masculine and fiercer. He rightly pointed out that mine looked like a tabby-cat, so we compromised on something in the middle. It did mean though that he had to free-hand the tiger on my leg in pen, going over and over it to refine it to the point where it could be inked. Redrawing it took about an hour, so we got started tattooing at about 2pm.

We stopped at 4.30.

Two hours of sheer hell. I have a huge tattoo already on my back, so I thought I was prepared, since whilst parts of it hurts like hell, on the whole it wasn't too

bad.

I wasn't prepared.

Not at all. The tattoo is on the outside of my left calf, coming up from my foot to my knee and there's just not a bit of that that doesn't hurt like a bastard. The skin is thin: bones and tendons are all too near the surface and fat is relatively scarce which is guaranteed to pinch. I wont bore you with the details of my shameful behaviour during those 150 minutes (9000 seconds, each one counted), but it boils down to quivering, whimpering, flinching, and trying to claw my way over the back of the chair without actually moving, since I did, I vaguely remembered, originally want (and had to *pay*) for said tattoo.

An hour and a half late, tattooed beautifully and a mere £140 out of pocket I met Kal, who was understandably grumpy, having waited for an extra hour and half in his car because I didnt have my mobile in my pocket to tell him how long I'd be, and I in turn hadn't realised he wasn't coming back at 3pm. Ooops.

Now that the cling-film is off and healing is underway it looks, I think, fantastic. And here's a picture to prove it:

So... Whaddya think?