I woke at 12, ready to collect the final 20 euro off a friend to complete the tattoo portion of the fundraising. From there, i met up with another friend and we trooped up to the third floor of Snakebite, on middle abbey street.
As we approached reception, we were to encounter the first of two inconveniences that the day held in store. It emerged that there had been a feck up with my 1.30 appointment time, and the only available slot of the day was at 5.30.
Another friend joined us as we got down to discussing the size, layout etc... They printed out AJB's design and placed it on the table. This is the moment we encountered the second problem of the day. They explained to me that the size I wished to have done would result in the e's, o's, b's etc in the lettering closing over after 6 months and that there would also be inking issues with the scroll that was on the top and bottom of the design. The compromises I would have had to make to use the design would have been too much, and would have basically made it look cr@p.
So we re-assessed and decided to go with the Leinster Rugby logo, with HEC written at the top and Champions 2009 at the bottom. We also decided to curve the leinster rugby logo slightly to kind of round the image off a bit better.
We had time to kill and frittered it away playing 18 holes of Tiger Woods 2009 and grabbing a sambo, returning refreshed and re-energised.
After a brief wait, I was led to the tattooing room and after shaving my hammy and sanitising it, Robert (German i think) got down to business. Let me clear up a common myth - tattoos really aren't that painful, bit of a sting but not too bad. 45 minutes later, with regular photo breaks, i had survived and now permanantly sport the Leinster crest! They clingfilmed me up and sent me on my merry way with nappy rash cream (its what they use apparantly!) and all the relevant aftercare info.
Its quite bloody at the moment and will be for the next two days so theres no real finished product yet - I have some decent photos of the stages of it which I will be posting tonight, after i find my photo uploader thingy. The sensation i feel on my leg now is very similar to moderate sunburn, so its not too bad.
The tat looks great from what i can see of it so far, but looking forward to having it cleaned up properly and ready to show off!
Thanks to everyone who has contributed so far to the mycharity page (donations still open - see my signature for link).
For the sake of transparency, here is how I raised the 140 it cost in the end for the tattoo.
Lorcan Kavanagh - 50 euro
Rob Keogh - 20 euro
Kerry & Orla - 20 euro
Jackass - 20 euro
David Cooney - 10 euro
Paul O'Connor - 10 euro
Philip Corcoran - 10 euro.
I'd like to thank AJB for whipping up a great image. Its a pity we couldnt use it in the end but there was nothing we could do about it
.Thanks guys and stay posted for pics! *SCROLL DOWN FOR PHOTOS*
Fair play Simon!
