OK. This haircut

So long overdue that I was considering adopting the traditional "Welsh manic bard" style, with long flowing locks swept vaguely back. French arty types wear their hair a similar way... Anyway I didn't. I went to the new salon clutching my money off voucher.

I was greeted like a new best friend and had to give my full name (which they promptly mis-spelt), birthday (not date), address and grandmothers' maiden names and place of birth. Then they led me to the shearing.

It started with a hairwash. Nothing new there. Ha ! Think again ! The coiffeur flicked a switch on the chair and I started moving. It lifted my legs in the air and started massaging my back while my head was upside down in the sink.

The massage was almost pleasant. The ripples up either side of your spine were OK, but I wasn't sure about the end of the movement which was a bit like being poked very hard in the shoulder-blades with a full packet of cornflakes. Meanwhile my hair was shampooed to within an inch of its life. Longtemps.

Afterwards the little coiffeur started cutting. He cut very well and we chatted about his background and his life in France. He's Hmong.

He said, "It must be two months since you had your hair cut !"

I thought that it may well be longer, but since this seemed to be a very serious point to him I just shrugged and tried to look as if this was significant to me !

Perhaps I should go and get my hair cut more often than I do. Once my shoulder-blades have stopped aching.

Comments

Gary Benfold said…
Some of us would love to have hair to cut...
10:24 am
Ken said…
Hear, hear Gary. I wish mine would have stayed around long enough for it to have the opportunity of going grey. (That's 'gray' to your trans-pond readers wot fancies dey spika da reel Eenglis.)
9:51 pm
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A bit about music exams in UK and France

They're really different. I think I have already mentioned that while in the UK people generally find a private teacher for their instrument, or do it through a school scheme, here there are municipal music school, conservatoires and so on. The situation is a little more complex than I had first understood, because the schools vary in the rigidity of their organisation: the most, the conservatoires, next the municipals, then the associations. Our music school is an association, but it tends to apply the standards of the municipal schools with its programme of cycles, etc. Britain - grade 1 to 8, grade 8 being roughly equivalent to A-level, pre university/conservatoire. France - 3 cycles, each taking about 4 years, with 3ème cycle being roughly equivalent to grade 8. Theory of music - UK to take grade 8 you need theory grade 5. In France you study theory alongside your instrumental studies, very slowly. Catrin's flute music is MUCH more difficult than the stuff she does in theor...
Read more

Good news from my sermon buddy

Yesterday we went over my script from August 13. There really wasn't much she had taken exception to. Once or twice she wondered quite what I was getting at (they had the same problem at Deeside, I think...) and I do have difficulties with the word " de ", but then she said "Who doesn't?" So I felt very encouraged. I also took the opportunity to ask her about one or two things: 1) Direct preaching. Like I used to in Britain, I preach saying you - using "vous" when I am talking to the whole wide world and "tu" when I want it to feel as if I am addressing each person individually. French preachers tend to say rather "What will we do, what will one do". So I asked her if she felt my way was too direct, too brutal for the French ear. She said "I think you can get away with it with your English accent". In fact several people have commented on how much they appreciated being spoken to directly in preaching. 2) Liaisons Last...
Read more

A brief sortie to North Wales

 Following the Great Keswick Debacle, when our volunteering at the Keswick café was sabotaged by our assorted indispositions, we had airline tickets to use up. Yes, we had not taken travel insurance, so we paid even more money to change our tickets to fly for a short visit to North Wales. This time we were able to go. We passed extremely slowly through a very crowded Bordeaux airport but in good time to get our plane. All seats in the terminal were taken so we leaned against whatever we could find while waiting to board. Hey, bags need seats, too! though sometimes pointing out to Pat, "No, that's a bag seat", makes the bag find a new refuge on the lap of the person sitting next to it... Once on the plane we quickly found our allocated seats - right at the back on the left hand side - stowed our bags and the flight was smooth and uneventful.  We had 30 minutes in Manchester to disembark, get through immigration , hustle off to the station and board our train for Shotton. I...
Read more