Forming a low point in my otherwise adequate marriage (see, by this very description of my ten-year relationship you can see I am still smarting from the comment), this morning M informed me that I look like Dickie Davies. Yeah, I had to check the link included there to work out exactly how insulted to be, and I have to confess, the view from North Kent right now is that I should be very insulted. Very insulted indeed.
Upon calmly, quietly (naturally) asking him to clarify what he meant by this, it transpires that he was referring to the unmistakeable leonine streak of grey which has surfaced in my hair since Friday’s cut. As I write, this is now being ‘dealt with’ (I have dug out the Clairol). Yes, it may surprise you to know that I actually choose to have this hair colour – I rely upon its very nondescript-ness to convince people that it is real, not fake. After all, why on earth would you pay to have hair a normal boring colour like this? Precisely. I rest my case.
But all this hair-related commentary / insult led me to muse briefly upon the relationship I now have with my crowning sort-of-okay (rather than the relationship I have with my husband right now – there’s no musing on that, just growling about it). My brilliant hairdresser, who I have been faithful to ever since we ditched the taxi-driving home hairstylist at the end of 2009 (trust me, hairdressing and cabbing are not natural bedfellows in terms of training, skill or temperament required), always asks me what I want when I (irregularly, and usually in a state of dire dishevelment categorised as a barnet emergency) visit her salon. She takes very well the instruction “this, but shorter and less hairy, so I don’t have to do anything with it in the morning or come back for ages” very well, every time, and bless her always does exactly as I ask.
Since it’s one of my key hair USPs, she also always enquires if it’s easy to deal with in the morning. The honest answer to this is, I simply don’t know. After having the Ls and returning to work, what now constitutes hair success is very different to what it used to be. Pre-Ls it was a morning-long trip to Toni & Guy on Regent Street; cut, dye, magazines and coffee; and every morning teasing the complex layers into something bespoke to face the day.
N0w, it’s staggering up at 6am and blundering into the bathroom, when I make a fleeting call as to whether the strands need washing, or whether ten minutes under a showercap will tame it sufficiently to enable me to hold my head up high throughout the day. If I’m wearing glasses, there is an additional level of complexity, since the arms of these can cause the sideburns (yes, I know, since I’m a laydee, that isn’t the technical term for them, but I know what I mean) to stand at right angles from my head, but since usually when I’m out and about its a contact lens days, I probably get away with it. In general, I like to think that nowadays my hair lives under the radar, or at the very least, under a large padded hood.
landlsworkingmum 