Back in style – and I’ve taken a short cut to near-respectability!
RING the bells in celebration. I’ve had my first haircut since December.
I was neatly trimmed for Christmas, a bit like a turkey, when a week later my back went, I couldn’t leave the house and my lockdown started early.
Then came a spinal operation, recuperation and real lockdown, and it is only now I have felt able to return to Tracey’s hair salon, in Honley, for a date with stylist Jade and hirsute destiny.
“It’s a mess,” I said. “I had a go at it myself.”
Tracey started laughing from the next room.
I like to wear my hair long but, after all this time, the untrimmed locks hung like Rapunzel’s but without the lustre, and had become bushy enough for a family of squirrels to take refuge.
Jade tipped me back over a basin and washed it just to make sure none were still lurking behind my ears.
The one part I don’t like about having my hair cut is that you sit in a chair and stare at yourself in a mirror that takes no prisoners. God, is that me? I would prefer boudoir lighting or a Doris Day lens to hide my features, but that could, of course, lead to a haircut like the one I gave myself.
The one and only benefit of Covid regulations is that now I had to wear a mask and was spared the reminder that I wasn’t getting any younger.
Finally, Jade had finished, gave me a mirrored glimpse of the back with no squirrels, and I nodded acknowledgement that, as always, she had done a fine job.
“Almost respectable,” commented Tracey.
“I haven’t been respectable for years,” I said.
But what an improvement. Tracey was right. Almost respectable.