I have had my hair cut.
This is a cause for celebration that I can hardly find words to express.
My hair has badly needed cutting for weeks now, making me look rather like the sort of dog that you hope won’t get on your sofa. This has been driving me mad with the irritation of hair tickling my neck and getting in my eyes. The only even faintly silver lining has been that it has looked so awful that nobody has paid any attention to whatever sartorial disasters I have been wearing, because of their attention being riveted on my dreadful overgrown-hedge hairstyle.
I thought that I would get it cut in time for all the end of term sporting and speeching festivities at the children’s schools, in order to look pleasingly well-groomed and sophisticated amongst the gleaming array of pearls and designer sandals: and then when I phoned the hairdresser and asked for an appointment I was greeted with the truly dreadful news that he had taken three weeks’ holiday and buzzed off to Spain.
I was too shaken at first by the ghastly shock even to make an appointment for his return.
I had got to choose between ever-more-upsetting hair, in the last glamorous week of the summer term, or face the terrible worrying ordeal of trusting some unknown and possibly talentless or reckless stranger with the maintenance of my crowning glory.
I decided to wait.
Of course the hairdresser came back in the end: and when he sailed back into the salon today looking brown and pleased with himself I was practically waiting on the doorstep.
I love going to the hairdresser, especially after weeks and weeks spent driving taxis and drilling holes and glueing shelves together. Some youthful aspirant washed my hair and gave my scalp a soothing massage. I was issued with some decently strong coffee, and finally the hairdresser brought peace to my tousled soul.
On top of all that I was a bit early for my appointment, and so had a rare and serendipitous opportunity to catch up with the splendid selection of glossy magazines which were on offer, and which turned out to be a marvellous way of squandering half an hour.
I was completely captivated. All of them seemed to be encouraging their readers to aspire to multiple orgasms and a kitchen decorated in six shades of white, with equally enthusiastic tones of vigour and much of the same vocabulary.
I had quite a good look through the collection and they were an intriguing read: although I thought rather disparagingly that they could hardly be considered a point of reference for women these days, not in the way I recall magazines were in my youth.
I flicked through at least four and not only could I not find a single knitting pattern that might be quietly detached and pocketed, but noticed that not one mentioned the best way of getting grass stains out of cricket whites or puppy wee out of carpets.
Also I liked the look of the lovely pictures of painted fingernails. There were several pages of advice about how to restore your fingernails to beauty which I read avidly. This was of interest since I took a substantial chunk out of my thumb and part of the nail during a moment of distraction with a hacksaw last week, and it has been looking rather black and ragged ever since. I was disappointed not to find any advice about this sort of manual unattractiveness, it was all about cuticles. I am not quite sure what a cuticle is, but I imagine mine are all right, because nobody has ever said to me: “Gosh, what ugly cuticles you have.”
After some fruitless searching I decided that today’s magazines were obviously not intended to address issues of pressing importance and settled to read interviews with very beautiful looking people who had been photographed in several differently arresting poses. The men had been photographed to look moody and stern, the women were all smiling their hearts out and twirling their skirts.
I confess I had no idea at all who they were, or what a single one of them did for a living. They were clearly important enough to be interviewed and their opinions considered, but obviously had been passed over by Radio Four and therefore escaped my attention up until now. However they all had very clearly expressed views on whether or not a person should wear high heels for work, and of the importance of something called Pilates, and of it being good occasionally to let it all go and go out without your makeup.
I had gone out without my makeup, so I was pleased to learn that this was a good thing. Nevertheless I felt somewhat outdone by such glossy lives parading in front of me, and felt obliged to boost my neglected femininity by purchasing a pot of reduced moisturiser that I especially like in the Body Shop on my way home. After that I called in at the haberdashery stall on the market and bought some nice tapes in shades of white to make into curtain ties.
I can now feel satisfied once again that I am a thoroughly modern woman.
