Haircuts

This has been a topic of at least one of my blogs in the past. I hate going to the hairdresser. There is the well-meaning but lame attempt to get one talking:

'Are you going anywhere nice tonight?'
 'What else have you got planned for the rest of the day?'
'Have you decided where you are going for your holiday yet?'

Much they care. They are no doubt taught to be chatty as some folk like a chance to have a blether. I wish they were also schooled in recognising the curmudgeonly elderly person who doesn't want to talk.

Then there is the apparently endless snipping.  Hanks have to be divided, the ends cut off and then sort of pinked (technical term for something my mother did to hems and so forth with a pair of special jagged edged scissors. I have no idea why.) The pinking goes on and on whilst they dream of what they are going to have for supper or the latest boyfriend. All of a sudden they come to and hack off the end in one blunt movement again. Why? I have yet to fathom that.

Then there is the ignoring of the client's neurosis about the length of her fringe. If mine doesn't come down past my eyebrows it's the paper bag over the head for me for a couple of weeks. Or utter misery as I feel, to quote the cat (or was it the donkey?) in Shrek, 'all exposed and nasty.'

Then follows the endless drying. What takes me ten minutes at home, even when my hair is longish, takes them twenty, thirty… it feels like a week. Separating, curling, pinning, laying flat, doing the next bit. On and on. I don't have thick hair either. However long it takes I am usually sent forth into the world with a damp head and get a cold because damp hair on a December day in Scotland is not good.

Of course I enthuse when shown the result in the mirror.The back looks very good - it doesn't have my face in it. A face that needs a certain length of frame. I am a wimp. I don't complain.

About two, or even three years ago, I decided this wasn't worth the increasingly large lump of cash I was obliged to hand over gracefully at the end of the ordeal. Plus a tip of course. (If I wanted to go back I had to give them a reason not to scalp me.) I made the decision to cut my own. And though I always imagine the neatly coiffed  NDFAS ladies who sit behind me at lectures thinking 'Must ask her which hairdresser she uses so I can avoid them' at least I don't have to suffer the irritation, boredom and ultimate despair at the result.

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Single dad at 17.

A very tiny Ella

A slightly bigger Ella

I haven't posted here for a while - Easter and other distractions are my excuse. Right now I feel like making obeisance to my 17 year old grandson who is virtually sole parent to 4 month old Ella. The reasons for this are best not published here but what does demand recognition is Sandy's ability to be an amazing single dad. It has been remarked on at meetings (inevitable given his age and the situation) of the child protection group, that other single dad's have successfully raised their children - but they aren't usually as young as him.

A friend of his mother's (my daughter, now a very young grandmother) gave her a drawing book and crayons to pass on to Sandy, advising him to either write a sort of diary of events or draw frustrated scrawls when things are getting him down. Not sure he remembers to do this or is even so inclined but it would make an interesting variation to the diaries of  Adrian Mole, 17 1/2. Very publishable I would have thought.

It's rarely his little girl who gets him down (she does seem to be an early teether and all parents know the grief that causes to everyone concerned) but events outside his control and, occasionally, the isolation can bite. Few friends of his own age have stayed the course once there was a baby to inhibit the intake of cider and loud action movies. He has insisted on living alone in a rented flat which he keeps scrupulously clean and tidy, being slightly OCD (no genetic transference there from me, but possibly his mum…). He takes Ella for jaunts on the bus to nearby towns and has coffee with her in local cafés. The first journey, by train, was something of a traumatic experience as he found himself changing a nappy in full sight of other travellers. Worse followed; he was unable to go into the nappy-changing area in a café because it was also the ladies toilets. They let him in eventually when he threatened to change the nappy right there in the middle of the café. I was privileged to accompany them once (we went by car) and the little lady just loves Pizza Hut - so many admirers to be waved and smiled at.

The advantage to Ella of having such a young dad are limitless. He does crazy dances for her and she laughs hugely. he while her around and jounces her about much to her glee. He is strong and fit and fairly tireless. I'm sure that eventually she will teach him which outfits look good and which look a little odd.

So if he won't keep a record I just might. Look out for more 'single dad' posts.