Yes, I have had my hair cut. I don’t like to show off (especially if you haven’t been able to visit the hairdresser or barber yet), but I do feel transformed. Like many others, I’ve realised that covid-comfort eating has caused me to put on weight, but I’ve now convinced myself that most of that extra weight was being carried on my head. I no longer look like a neglected gorse bush, but whether that will help me squeeze into my jeans I’m not so sure.
Like so much of life now, visiting the hairdresser’s is a strange, other-worldly experience. The hairdressers, who used to smile and chat and offer you hot drinks and a copy of Hello magazine, now look like slightly underdressed riot police. They still smile and chat, and are obviously as happy to be back at work as we are to see them there, but the whole mask/visor thing is just weird. Necessary, but weird.
When I started writing this blog it was supposed to be about the new challenges and possibilities of retirement, as well as the newfound freedom. I couldn’t have imagined that less than a year later the whole world would be presented with entirely unexpected challenges and severely curtailed freedom. I certainly wouldn’t have believed that a visit to the hairdresser’s would be the most adventurous act of my week. And what’s my next big adventure, you ask? Next week I’m going to have lunch in a pub and the following week I’m going to take a train! The adventures are coming thick and fast. When I think that my idea of excitement used to be a helicopter ride over the Grand Canyon or an overnight train from Cairo to Aswan, I can hardly believe that I now consider taking a train to Paddington to be the height of reckless behaviour.
I think the problem is that people are too resilient and adaptable. We embraced lockdown life by taking more walks, enjoying the sunshine and the birds, exchanging silly memes, Zooming anyone and everyone, drinking too much wine, making bread and clearing out cupboards. We quickly got used to this way of life and these things made us feel safe. Now we’re needing a lot of convincing to venture out in public again, armed with only a flimsy mask and a bottle of hand sanitiser as protection. I’ve decided to live dangerously, however, and am actually planning to spend a night in a hotel. I’ve already sourced the Hazmat suits.