Just the look I was going for

I figured that the NEED to bottle my sloe gin this morning was a good enough excuse for being late for work. It's original, if nothing else, and I can't promise I didn't try some either. A great way to start the working day!

 

The fire drill at work proved a good excuse to hobnob with a fellow musical colleague (and we had on the same shoes!), who took the opportunity not to sneak in a quick fag like most of the others, but instead to present me with Mozart's Mass in C Minor with a view to me potentially trying out for the choir. Spreading the score atop my open palm -  "Right, you be soprano, I'll take alto, you can be tenor, and you, bass," nodding towards the other foundation department members and clearing my throat in readiness. One gave me a look of fear; the other, disdain. One can but try. Plebs.

 

I decided to be very brave after work and let one of the students loose on my hair in the purpose-built teaching salon. "I'll have highlights, please!" I declared with a little more glee than I had originally intended.

 

"Anything else other than highlights?"

 

"Well - do whatever you like. Do whatever you think's best." She should know, right?

 

The girl presented me with an array of coloured tufts of hair from which to choose. Crumbs, when I last did this (some thirteen years ago) I'm sure it was just blond or brown. I suffer from option stress. So bewildered was I that I almost chose purple in my panic. The manageress, clearly observing my burgeoning state of alarm from across the salon, flew across the room and rescued me, suggesting three much more sensible colours of varying shades of blond. That would do nicely.

 

Some three hours later and the girl was finished. I had long given up hope of being able to catch the Warminster Philharmonic Orchestra's rehearsal (one of many orchestras and choirs I am scouting out this week and next with a view to potential membership). Granted, I had got a head massage and wash out of it, which I wasn't expecting, but had naively trusted that the girl's being a) a hairdresser [in training], and b) teenaged, might have resulted in something more attractive than a 'ginger 80s Blue Peter presenter' according to Tom, with no attempt made to mask his laughter - who only invited me round, I suspect, through some vulgar curiosity upon learning (via a text sent from the loo - I like to be time-efficient) that I had spent three hours to end up looking shit. The blow-dried, wispy-straightened, orange-streaked, be-fringed mess that was my 'do' was so amusing that I promptly went home and took photos for posterity and a source of future amusement for the dark times.

 

After knocking back a glass of wine, a sleeping pill and a laxative (I really had eaten too much goose and cake over the weekend), I was soon ready for bed.