Tattoo or not tattoo?

To have a tattoo was the suggestion made most often as I told more people about my Seventy before 70 challenge. Talking about tattoos was like opening a hornets' nest. In Britain tattoos are what we might call a Marmite issue. Marmimte is a yeast extract with a distinctive taste, peope usually either love it or hate it, there are not many neutral opinions.

My own family typify the facets of the debate. My sister, and my youngest daughter each have two tattoos which serve as an expression of their personalities. The designs were carefully chosen. They thought long and hard before committing themselves to the ink. My son paid for sister's second tattoo as a birthday present although he has no tattoos of his own.

There was plenty of advice on offer about how to make a decision about my own tattoo (or not) including drawing the design on my skin to see how I responded to seeing it day after day. Elder daughter, who vows she would never have a tattoo because she can't see the purpose of it, was only too happy to draw on my arms with Sharpie pens.

Friends were also divided in their views. One with no personal tattoos sent me photos of wonderful, artistic tattoos to help with design ideas. Another longstanding friend with a tattoo, she tells me, in a place few people have seen, expressed regret about her choice to have a tattoo. Since having the tattoo she has become a follower of Jesus Christ and now sees her tattoo as a desecration of her body, described in the Bible as a "temple of the Holy Spirit". For her this is a spiritual matter as well as a physical choice.

I did research locally, asking people I saw who had attractive designs where they went to have the tattoo. I followed up a fellow writer's recommendation, and another one from the assistant who helped me at Specsavers with a floral vine coiling up one arm, which she told me the tattooist had designed for her.

Venturing inside tattoo parlours was certainly a first for me. The style of artwork on display in the windows, where there was a shop window at all and not a darkened screen, generally put me off. I struggle to understand why anyone wants images like something from a horror film permanently impressed into their skin, it made me wonder who or what I might meet lurking behind the counter. But, having risked going through the doors, I need not have worried. Thank you in particular to Luke and to Louis for their time and advice, politely given and helpfully illustrated by references to their own sleeve tattoos. There was no hint that they thought it strange an old lady should be considering a tattoo, no attempt to put me off, but no pressured sales-pitch either. I felt unexpectedly comfortable talking to both of them. It was just like visiting any different kind of shop. What had I expected?! I can't remember now.

After months of unofficial consultation, background reading, reflection, and prayer, I have decided not to have a tattoo. However, all the elements of the whole decision-making experience definitely comprise something I had never done before.

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