WARNING: This post contains lots of photographs!! 

Having a tattoo session booked with Simon for some more work on my sleeve was a great excuse for a mini break – and for Ken and my first weekend ‘away’ together.

I had an ulterior motive as well … I really wanted to introduce him to my best friend Sarah.  And to see her and Andy of course.
We both took two days off work and, thanks in part to jumping on some pretty cheap Air New Zealand grabaseat flights, we flew down to Wellington on the Wednesday night.

Having my best friend live at the other end of the island means I don’t get to spend nearly enough time with her – but we do have the phone and text and twitter.
One thing that I know, yet it still surprises me, is that within 5 minutes of being together ..  it’s as if I saw her yesterday!

Sarah picked us up from the airport and we headed straight back to theirs (via a location to purchase a delicious bottle of wine) and for a look at their gorgeous new french doors, the large deck and to have a long overdue catch up.  After a few glasses of wine it was off to bed for a good night sleep and then a wee lie in before we headed in to town to my tattoo appointment.

Before we’d left home (Sarah and Andy’s I mean), Ken took some ‘Before’ pictures of my arm. I’m really happy that I’ve been documenting the progress of my sleeve.  It is quite amusing looking at old photos of me with nothing at all on my arms!

My right arm sleeve in progress - before the session

I try and have a good breakfast before any session and Floriditas is just across the road from ALC Headquarters. It smelled delicious as we walked in through the door and I thought immediately .. ‘mmm eggs!’
After I had enjoyed my delicious eggs, I took out my Nikon and handed it over to Ken – he was going to be the photographer for the day (in fact most of the photographs of the weekend were taken by him).

practicing on a cupcake before being let loose with a Nikon

Cupcake / Photograph by Ken

We walked in to ALC HQ and Char asked me how my eggs were .. cheeky tart! Thanks to my Twitter addiction, she knew we were just down the road.  Simon was there already and had some art for me .. the sea chest I wanted for the underside of my forearm.  It will finish off the ‘ocean floor’ and Bonney the Octopus’ tentacles wrap around it nicely.
There are two pieces in there for my brothers and after a little reconfiguration, Simon made a stencil and we were ready to go.

Just remember that I did warn you about the number of images ….

Laying the stencil

Dre Rock Tattoo Machine

Line work

Okay - so after just over 2 hours on the underside of my arm, I got a little bit too tender to continue. Time for colour for Bonney the Octopus

The nearly finished Sea Chest - there is still shading to finish off (nicely covered in soothing TINKture)

All washed down with a beautiful lamb roast – and a few more glasses of some yummy wines we picked up on the way home.
We stopped in at Glengarry and I bought a Chardonnay.  I know, I know, I don’t normally drink Chardonnay but Sarah wanted one and who am I to deny my host?  ‘Arrogant Frog’ … the Chardonnay, not Sarah, was delicious!  I actually really enjoyed it.

The next morning we had zero things to do on our schedule so whilst Andy and Sarah toddled off to work, we slept in and then mooched around.
When we finally headed in to town, we had a lovely brunch at Joe’s Garage (MORE EGGS!).  Joe’s is one of my favourite spots in Wellington for brunch, or breakfast or coffee.

From Joe’s we took a walk over to Te Papa (Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa) to have a look at the Unveiled exhibition.
Unveiled shows off over 200 years of wedding dresses and shoes and lingerie.  I thought that Dita von Teese’s gown was amazing and I loved the dress created from curtain materials (not subject to war rations).

I would have loved to have gone around some more of the Museum.  It changes so often and they have some amazing exhibitions – I can’t recall the last time I was in there.
Someone told me once that around 10% of their collection is on show and the storage areas are larger than the show rooms.  That’s a lot of history!!

We only had a few minutes to take a very very quick walk on the boardwalk outside the Museum and have a look at the waterfront before we headed back over to Joe’s to catch up with my lovely friend Gillian; who also makes TINKture which is the best tattoo after care product in existence!
We were joined by Amie and Scott for a bit which was great.  Later that night I got to meet a couple of Ken’s old friends from university and he met a few more of mine.

We had a very relaxing dinner at Dragon Fly which was absolutely delicious – especially the Black Doris Plum and Vanilla Vodka cocktails.  We had to wait a bit longer than I would have liked for our table – but they were really good about keeping us informed and if things got desperate, they were going to bring plates out to us in the garden concrete bar.
After dinner a few of us went to Hashigo Zake – an underground bar with amazing beer!

Even though we were in Wellington for three days, its still hard to get around to see everyone you want to see!
I felt a bit bad that I missed seeing a few people but sometimes you want to have a wee break and mooch a bit.  Plus my arm was pretty tender so that’s my excuse.
If we didn’t get to catch up, please count this as a heartfelt apology and a promise that I’ll try harder next time.

It was lovely to get away for a weekend together and I’m looking forward to the next one – we’re going scuba diving!!