Do I shave the growth or go full-on Blackbeard?
IAM sitting at my desk, scratching my chin, as I write these words. There is an air of fuzziness about the situation in which I find myself.
The cause is easily identified as I currently boast a few days’ growth of stubble and it is the presence of this unshaven appearance which presents a dilemma. Should I leave it and end up sporting a fullon beard?
This has all actually come about because of my ongoing lockdown laziness. Not going out means not bothering overmuch how you present yourself to the world, especially when the world at present is pretty much limited to the boundaries of your property, save for a walk, which is usually undertaken late afternoon or evening to avoid “busy” times. We live on the edge of a linear riverside park and close to open countryside and throngs of folk pass by daily as it’s a very popular lockdown exercise route.
Anyway, back to beards.
The last time I sported one was in a much more youthful era when as a young father I managed to catch chickenpox from my daughters. It is not an experience I would wish on any adult. I was covered from head to toe and some really awkward bits in between and, basically, driven nuts by the constant irritation of it all.
Growing a beard was one solution to avoid clawing at the clutch of spots adorning my facial features. I was off work for five weeks and told it was far more serious a disease as an adult than as a child. I would not argue with that assessment.
I can remember the relief, though, when the day came that I got rid of my protective beard and I have never given much thought to cultivating another, even though they are now more fashionable than for many years.
So, I am dithering. An indecisive in-betweener, not knowing whether to carry on growing or to
be rid and stop this hirsute nonsense in its tracks.
If I keep it I would have to decide what sort of bearded visage to present to the inside world (there’s scarcely any outside to worry about is there?).
Do I fashion it in pigtails in the manner of the infamous West Country buccaneer Blackbeard? Or do I go all prim and prissy and, perhaps, retain just an extravagant
moustache in the manner of Salvador Dali? It will, I fear, be neither. Any beard of mine will look like an unkempt Father Christmas, blending in with my over-long uncut hair.
This beard dilemma, of course, is just an increasingly visible byproduct of the current stay-athome situation allied to my increasing domestic laziness. I rarely don a buttoned shirt nowadays; jeans and jogging bottoms (the latter, a fraudulent look in my case) are the order of the day; and I currently have a few more cheap-as-chips, non-designer label, sweatshirts hovering in an online orders basket.
Taken all together it amounts to a cumulative outbreak of pandemic slobbishness for which, pathetically, I make no excuse.
With great regret I must inform readers that our beloved garden gazebo is no more, its once stout frame now lies snapped and crushed, having succumbed to a vicious attack of overnight wind to which we are all susceptible. This late summer garden acquisition has served us well as an outdoor, socially distanced, meeting place and as a refuge within its spacious beige plastic walls. I shall miss it but the world moves on and plans are being made to acquire a replacement for when lockdown eases. Mrs Davey, however, has insisted that this time the new one MUST be any colour other than beige!