Gone Today, But Hair Tomorrow...

Hair and women.  It's a complicated relationship.  We love it, we hate, we love it, we hate it.  We spend hundreds each year getting our follicles teased and tamed into position, or ripped out by the roots by a sadist with a neutral expression.  Whether we have a good day is largely dependent on the damp in the air.  We can go from this:

 To this:

in the time it takes to walk from our front door to the car.

This week I had my hair done; the ends taken off, colour retouched.  I walked down the street afterwards just LOVING myself, and my strutting was rewarded with a wolf-whistle.  Oh yes.  That, my friends, is the power of a sharp pair of scissors wielded by someone in black polyester slacks.

Living in the country it would be easy, very easy, to choose to let yourself go.  I can go DAYS without seeing another soul outside my immediate family - even the Jehovahs don't bother us much... probably because they're afraid they might cut themselves on some farm machinery and require a blood transfusion.

The temptation to:




is ENORMOUS!!!



It took me a year to recognise the danger signs:  choosing comfort over style, hanging out the washing with NO LIPSTICK, removing all the mirrors in the house. Small things, sure, but the top of a slippery slope.  But one day I stood up and I said "NO!"

So I have my hair kept in check once every six weeks; I file my nails BEFORE they look as if I've spent the day digging myself out of a coffin.  I exfoliate regularly, have a face-pack once a week, and try to wear underwear that doesn't trail elastic like threadworms.  Basically, if any hot-style love-action comes knocking, I'm ready...  provided there's nothing good on telly.

Alas and alack, sometimes even the best laid plans go awry.  Having had the hair on my head tended to other... er,  areas, required some attention. My bikini-line is in a perpetual state of reforestation and if it supported an eco-system trembling on a knife edge this would be cause for celebration.  Sadly this is not the case, and while El Hombre isn't a fan of this:

         He does like a certain homeliness:

So when I picked up the tube of  Veet last night I was hoping to achieve something pleasing - well-manicured yet not too formal - a bit like a municipal roundabout in high summer.  What I actually achieved was this:

And the moral of the story?  When the tube says three minutes, it means three minutes.