BeautifulMe

Something nice happened last night.

I did my usual old-lady walrus-wallow up and down the pool of the BeautifulMe Wellness Holistic BodyMindedness Health Spa and in the changing rooms afterwards a group of nice Swedish doctor ladies who had been in the pool with us remarked on how fit I was.

This is absolutely the first time in my entire life that I have ever received a compliment along these lines from anybody anywhere.

I was astonished, and, it must be confessed, laughed: but they were terribly earnest. One of them, it turned out, was the author of an international research study about fitness and well being in people in their middle age, and she explained that although not thin I was about the optimum size and weight and fitness to have the best possible chance for a very long life, because apparently in order to have the best chance of getting really old without unfortunately dying on the way, you have got to be a bit fat, and a bit fit, but not too much of either, which probably describes me rather well.

I compare myself to Number One Daughter and Number One Son-In-Law as my standard of desirability when it comes to general fitness, so it may be unsurprising that I fail utterly to meet it as they are international weight lifters. I was very pleased indeed to have such an accolade, as conversations about my general level of fitness usually only ever happen with Number One Daughter, who has a special expression that she keeps for them which is a carefully crafted combination of disapproving and despairing.

I looked in the mirror on the way out and for the first time entertained the possibility that I might not, after all, be a hopelessly lardy blobby person underneath my Marks & Spencer Stretch jeans, and felt secretly very pleased. Also I thought that if I told you about it, and then at some future date accidentally die young you could send a letter of complaint to the Swedish Bureau of Interesting But Mostly Useless Information and tell them on my behalf that their predictions were rubbish and the red wine got me in the end.

Since I am on the enjoyable topic of my personal appearance I shall continue by remarking that I followed up my self-improving healthy activities last night with a haircut today.

It should have been this morning, but we worked until four o’clock in the morning, because it was Hotel Staff Drink Too Much Night after the weekend, and then we got up again at seven to do the school runs. When we got home we just wanted to crawl back into bed, so I called the hairdresser with a rubbish excuse of some sort, felt mildly guilty but then went back to bed anyway, slept instantly and heavily all morning, and went to get my hair cut in the afternoon instead.

This is always a pleasant experience, and one which I have touched on in the past in these pages, but I assume that if you are a regular reader you have a very high boredom threshold, and so I am going to tell you about it again anyway. Also I like my hairdresser and think that everybody should go and have their hair cut there all the time, and then he will stop looking anxious about money or advertising or staff or renovation of the salon, and be able to concentrate on what he does superlatively well, which is cut my hair.

It is a source of sadness to me that my hairdresser is not a person who has achieved international acclaim for his work. He set off in his career full of enthusiasm in the nineteen seventies, believing that the crafting of hair into different shapes and moods was a true expression of art.

Unfortunately his career path led him to Kendal, where he arrived glowing with the ideal that he might make the town’s women beautiful and vibrant and brave in their coiffure.

I imagine he was very rapidly disillusioned. Kendal has never been renowned for its creative diversity, and as far as I can tell, pretty much everybody over fifty likes to have the same haircut anyway, a sort of tidy practical affair that doesn’t need blow drying.

Unfortunately I fall into this mould as well. I have occasionally thought that if I were a better person I would have a braver haircut, but alas, it turns out that actually I am every bit as dull as all the rest of Kendal in my tastes and style. I enjoy the girl washing my hair and then have exactly the same predictable trim every single time, which I suppose must be very dull for my kindly hairdresser although he is always lovely about it.

It is always nice to chat to him, he has got a wife and a business to run and lots of sensible ideas about life, and I like him very much. Most importantly however is that he makes a very nice job of my hair, which is a sort of St Bernard dog lookalike when he starts, and neat and feathery and soft when he has finished, which is always such a joy.

Mark went to the barber’s in the village and had his hair cut as well. He said that it will make our visit to Appleby fair go much more easily because we will look like plainclothes police if we polish our shoes.

It feels very nice to be fit and tidy and smart.

Maybe I will polish my shoes as well.