22 Minutes to School Summer Holidays!

Parents everywhere: we are holding hands in a circle, like we do before The Bells at New Year - waiting for the surge of energy - the big change - the starting anew. Six Weeks Without School !?!

Way back in the 80's, I ran out of  Islay High School in elation. I was a Red Arrow jet, trailing vapours of delight, freedom and release.

Why now, do I feel like I' m shouting through a hatch that's about to close? I'm about to be subsumed into Children First Land. It's my choice, of course. I'm glad I can do it, but  if you're looking for me, I'll be waving from the deck of a ship, with my telescope extended, looking for wee islands where I can do scraps of writing, scraps of thinking. 

I've had my hair cut again. My hairdresser used to call it, 'more Sharleen Spiteri than Sharleen Spiteri.' Aye. My rejection of the hassle and cost of hair dye is still going, so I'm feeling a bit more Emily Thornbury (MP). But she's got sass, right? 

Sassy Emily said today....

Twenty Years On

So here's a photo from 20 years ago when Francis and I first 'stepped out.' Imagine having no grey hair! Youth was wasted on me.

Fast forward two decades - to a Saturday morning in bed with the kids. They are considering trying to send Daddy a present. On Tour. 

Hugh: Like, maybe a bar of chocolate or something?

Me: He gets free chocolate in the dressing room every night (not jealous).

Hugh: A pot of hair gel, maybe?

Tess: An electric guitar?

Hugh: An electric guitar that shoots out electric rays! Like Eaglebones in Aquabats. And it can kill people. (Fits of giggles).

Tess: Drums that shoot out bats and slugs!

Hugh: (regains composure). What about a magazine of pretty ladies?

Me: (Whit?! Where did that come from?! He's seven. Surely he means Vogue?) And what about Mummy?

Tess: We can Sellotape pictures of Mummy in and pictures of Monkey and he can kiss it all day (does demo on mummy's face, while mummy foresees an unauthorized 'Monkey-in-Swimwear' photo-shoot on her iPhone).

Me: Be careful what you wish for...

Tess: Okay, then a robot servant.

Hugh: A garbage truck? (We are beyond justification now).

Tess: I know! What about Galactic Poo? (Yes, everyone's favourite).

Hugh: (Eventually, when giggles subside) You know, I really liked the 'pot of gel' idea.

June Know?

June. June know it's my favourite time of year? It's raining today but at least it's mild and light for about 18 hours a day.

I had a good night out on Monday - I met my Clydebuilt mentor, Liz Lochhead in Tinderbox, where she urged me to have the courage to aim for 'emotional plain speak' and not get tangled up in my own metaphors. What, like a trout riding a skateboard, skim-reading Poetry for Beginners?

It's good advice though. Aim for truth and the metaphor might be lurking around the corner. After our chat, I rushed down to the GUU to see my old pals, Belle and Sebastian do a wee belter of a gig.

It's always great to feel the love for them in the room. I felt like a student again and I always get glassy-eyed at Nobody's Empire.

As if that wasn't enough, I have booked a solo trip to London next week to see them in the Albert Hall (ooh, Missus). This doesn't sound like my life at all. These are my garden flowers though:

And this is my salt and pepper hair, after a year of saying 'beat it' to the hassle and expense of hair dye. Call me crazy. Call me a silver sister. Mind you, I still like to frequent the sun hat.

Lastly - There was a charity collection at school this week. Tess asked if she could bring in 'a Dalmatian'. Thank goodness it wasn't 101.

Every Kind of Mojon

I've been watching episodes of Hair on BBC3 with the kids. It's a TV hair-styling competition, a kind of Bake Off for Bouffants - easy to watch while sitting down after dinner.

Luckily it has given the kids a notion of brushing my hair and Tess gives a running commentary about how she is trying to 'kwee-ate' (create) a style that will have 'pwitty mojon' (pretty motion). 

Motion  pronounced as Mojon is one of my favourite of their multi-use words. They just stick it on to anything. Right now I'm doing blog mojon, but must go off and do pick-things-off-floor-while-wondering-what-to-cook-for-dinner mojon.

Being yourself, knocking down walls and the whole universe

Readers, I am still going grey. I am growing slowly into it. The kids keep inspecting my head in a running commentary and saying, yes, there is a little bit more grey! Indoors in dim light it looks fine, I think...

Outdoors, in bright sunlight I may look as if seagulls have poo-ed on my head, or as if I have been painting the ceiling - I don't know - but I was thinking today: is self-acceptance really such a radical act? Because that's all it is, this letting-your-hair-be-as-nature-intended. I threw out my old hair-dye towels today. They looked like they were used to dry rusty railings. And tea bags.

Meanwhile, we have knocked a wall down. I'll say that again, shall I? We have knocked a wall down and we are not wall-knocking-down people! 

It's great though. Instead of a dining room and a teensy kitchen, we have a big kitchen-diner thingy. It only took us five years. Photos to follow, if you are lucky...

And finally, I asked Tess why she wouldn't go and play with Hugh today. She shrugged and replied, oh, he is just wrecking the whole universe, as if that was standard for 6 year old boys. 

I need Minnie Mouse ears to keep me sane

I can explain. It's been one of those days. A day of first-world problems. A day when I keep telling myself, some people have got real problems, but okay,  I'll admit it, mothering drove me nuts today.

Poor Hugh has now had a bug for over a week and just wants to fight his sister, me and every gargantuan injustice he can. You should'a let me use the red crayon! 

Earlier, I had to collect the Dyson from the repair shop (why do they deodorize it with essence of car wash?) and the mission led to scuffles with his sister, wailing in the street, vacuum-packed misery.

Later, when he was calmer, we saw a woman about my age with greying hair (no dye) and I mumbled in my self-soothing way, see her hair looks nice enough...good on her; he said, Well, mummy, I don't think you should grow your hair grey. 

Aww. I said, Why not? Daddy's is grey. He said, well, it only looks okay for a man...

Sadly, I know what he means. And yet, I'm still trying to resist the pressure to be a slave to putting chemicals in my hair every 4 weeks for the next fifteen years at great effort, time and expense. Other people might enjoy it, not me.

I came home and stuck on a Minnie Mouse hairband to do the Dyson-ing, through wails of protest that it was too noisy and getting in the way of the TV. 

They are asleep at last and I am gazing peacefully on the pristine red rug and the soft-plum sunset over the west hills of Glasgow. I will fall into bed with mattress-all-mine delight, as Nice Man is drumming in Spain, but of course I look forward to his return, free hotel soaps and otherwise. 

First World Dilemmas - is there any way to go gracefully grey?

Indulge me,  dear readers, with my first-world preoccupation -  my 'problem' grey-area.

I am 47 now and have been sticking 'a wee semi permanent' in my hair for about 5 years to cover emerging grey. (By the way - there is no such thing as grey hair - only white hair mixed with dark, giving the impression of grey). But I am weary of it. It is faff and a kerfuffle and the roots come through so quickly. I forget which colour I bought and get piebald 'brassy' tones. I wreck the towels and the bathroom lino.

Most of all, it does not feel authentic. It feels like a cheat - pretending to look younger than you are.

It's gender biased too. Men look fine with grey hair and silly with dyed hair. How did they escape? I am toying with getting it coloured regularly at the hairdresser but it costs a fortune, takes hours at a time, and guess what - 6 weeks later you have a big white/grey line where everyone knows you need to get your roots done. Again.

But it's amazing how many woman gasp and say. 'Oooh , nooo, don't go grey! It' so aging!  You can't!'   Hairdressers tend to just shake their heads in silent horror. Lots of my pals colour their own hair in the bathroom, and seem to be much better at it than I am, (as they are better at baking and similar things for which I have no ambition).

I am swithering and swithering, preoccupied with the vain trivia of it all - yet still lacking in my conviction to 'go for it'. I just found this online and felt like I had found a support group. 

If I'm going to 'go for it' I have to get through the awkward 'growing out' phase, knowing that the playground mums are thinking - isn't it time you had your roots done?

Will a splash of red lipstick distract from follicular hara kiri?  I doubt it. Time will tell which way I jump.