West Coast Ink

Late last year, 3 girlfriends and I expeditioned over to Perth to celebrate the birthday of one of our foursome. My immeasurably generous Uncle had vacated the state and left his house and car at our disposal. Once we landed in the morning it took us all of an hour to find somewhere that would serve us poached eggs, smoked salmon and a bottle of champagne.
It was a week of good food, some...interesting clubbing experiences, wineries a creepy approach from a crazy lady of leisure and her Colonel Sanders looking friend and a trip down to Margaret River. During the road trip it was decided that we would all get tattoos, it was something that we could all do together, our gift to the birthday girl, something permanent to mark our trip together, something crazy, because to be perfectly honest...we're not the most sane collective at the best of times.
The drive back to Perth was filled with frantic googling of tattoo placement ideas, reputable tattooists and drive through KFC chips. We called ahead and made appointments for that afternoon, arriving with minutes to spare we parked and found our way to the shop in the heart of the city. The guys were chatty, funny and charming... unsurprising as they were about to violate the skin of 4 young women. We each showed them our designs and explained exactly what we wanted, looked up fonts and waited as they printed our stencils. You could feel the tension building, two of the girls were about to receive their first tattoos.
The birthday girl was up first, her reaction to the needle along her foot didn't fill me with confidence. She and I had gotten tattoos at the same time a few weeks previously and we seemed to have about the same tolerance and I was about to get tattooed on the inside of my heel. As soon as the artist started on mine I understood. Getting tattooed on your foot HURTS, where was this memo when people were telling me that the ribs is the worst?! This was my third tattoo and was the first one during which I found myself grimacing. Gladly it was small and was finished quickly. Balls was up next, the tattoo needle piercing her virgin skin and...the woman is a veritable trooper! The small and deeply personal ink design on her finger that she had mulled over with the artist was done and she had not winced nor cried aloud. (Yes. I just snuck a little 'Invictus' in there). Finally, it was Miss Grace's turn. Our beautiful lady, the one among us that we never thought would go under the needle sat excitedly as her tattooist freehanded her tattoo onto her ribs. She lay there silently as he worked on her, looking at us to tell her where he was up to. It was the biggest tattoo of the day and Grace, true to her name sat like a lady for the duration.
The birthday girl, known thereafter as Ole One Shoesie, put her right shoe in her bag as she couldn't wear it for fear of rubbing on the freshly traumatised skin and we walked across the street and into a bar.
One Shoesie in one bare footed glory.