Horror Haircuts.....

My boy starts at a real life, proper school tomorrow; how can a mother bear it?

One minute the midwife is passing me him, he is still slightly blue around the gills and he is peering at me with these pleading little dark eyes that say "your life changes beyond measure from this point on", and the next minute I'm preparing to hand him over at the school gate, all the while holding back the tears. From angelic newborn to cheeky schoolboy with too much attitude in the blink of an eye; how can that be fair?

So, last afternoon before school starts; it has to be time to visit the hairdresser.

I decide I'm not trailing into Lincoln to the traditional (yet excellent) Salvatore gent's hairdressers; the 20 mile round trip seems a tad pointless. I grab the yellow pages and decide a trip to Market Rasen, the local market (obviously) town has to yield a half-way decent hairdresser.... I opt for Top Notch Unisex Hairdressers on the High Street. Unisex has to be reasonably OK, right......?

We turn up and I feel that at some point on the A46 into Market Rasen, we have been caught in a time suction vacuum that has catapulted us right back to 1958.

The salon is run by two ladies of...advanced years. Their (one) client is sat with a digestive, sipping a mug of tea with her perm rollers in (on her head, clearly not in the mug of tea...)

Ben takes a seat, I'm now wondering was this a great idea? Of course, it'll be fine- his hair grows really quickly....

It was all fine until she started asking him to keep still because she didn't want to cut his ear off... Don't they train hairdressers how to not cut kid's ears off???? Is this not a technique they learn on day one? Or was she so old when she trained that cutting kid's ears off was seen as an unavoidable hazard?

At this point she has cut way too much hair off, it is looking decidedly wonky but, as he still has both his ears, I look to my watch and say "goodness! We need to be off; that'll be fine, thank you- how much???"

We bolt from said shop and then are ping'd straight back into 2008 when we enter an eco-friendly health food shop run by a ruggedly attractive tall man who knows everything there is to know about local alternative therapists, it seems. He says the number for the Thai masseuse is at home.....he will call me later if I leave my number.

I leave it with him and pay an extortionate amount for a breakfast energy shake for vegetarians.

Well, it can't hurt...can it?