A Haircut, Psychic Powers and a Da Vinci Exhibition

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The park was dark and moody in the morning…

I started a dark and moody Wednesday in the hair salon, and ended it in the woods in the glorious sunshine.

As you do.

I got my hair cut for the first time in several years. It’s something I had been meaning to do for quite some time, but the fact that 1. I’m incredibly lazy and 2. I dislike paying large amounts of money for something that inevitably spends most of the time being tied up in a ponytail, meant that it was long overdue. I loved having ridiculously long hair (it hung all the way down to my lower back) when I went out, but during the rest of the time it had become an annoyance.

There’s nothing more horrifying than the moment after you’ve had your hair washed and brushed back and you’re faced with yourself in the mirror while waiting for your stylist. If ever there’s a point where I can see the similarities between my round head and an ageing turtle, then this is it. And there’s nowhere else to go – spinning around and facing away from the mirror would only result in staring directly at somebody else who is experiencing the same thing, so the only option I’m left with is to try not to awkwardly stare at myself and find something interesting on the table in front…

Still, my stylist was lovely, we had a nice chat, she gave me exactly the cut I wanted (below my shoulders, long layers etc) and I was done within an hour.

As I left the salon I discovered that my phone network was down and has no way of calling, texting or using the internet. This was a problem – I was meeting The Bloke after my appointment so we could have lunch and then go and see the Da Vinci exhibition at the art gallery and so had no way of finding out where he was. In a mild panic I tapped into my psychic ‘where could The Bloke be?’ powers, surmising that by this point he would have checked out the new Primark to see what the fuss was about, he wouldn’t have gone to his favourite cafe in Waterstones as we were having lunch together, and he needed to be in fairly close walking distance to the salon so that I wouldn’t be waiting for ages or have to trek across the city centre to meet him.

There was only one place he could be: HMV in the Bullring nearby. I knew that he had his camera so he would either be looking at the latest film releases or photographing some sort of event from the balcony. I walked across and as I was going down the escalators there he was… standing outside HMV. And he had already been to (and was unimpressed by) Primark. In the words of Elaine Paige and Barbara Dickinson: I know him so well…

After lunch we went to see the Da Vinci exhibition at the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery. To mark the 500th anniversary of the death of Da Vinci, a selection of his drawings and sketches from The Royal Collection have been put on display at twelve museums across the UK. It was fascinating to see artwork of that age, including detailed annotated drawings of different parts of human anatomy, trees and horses, in such incredible condition.

Afterwards The Bloke and I were discussing an upcoming outdoor photoshoot that he is doing for a friend and his concerns about the unpredictable factors involved and the lack of opportunity to practice different settings and backdrops. Secretly, I messaged my friend who lives nearby, and then informed him that he would be doing a portrait photography shoot with us in the woods near our house later in the afternoon. To look a little less conspicuous to the dog walkers passing through, I borrowed my friend’s dog who enjoyed the extra walk (and the accompanying treats), while The Bloke tried out different ideas and settings as the light changed.

Probably one of the more random days I’ve had recently, but certainly an interesting one!

What about you guys? What are you plans for the Easter weekend?

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15 thoughts on “A Haircut, Psychic Powers and a Da Vinci Exhibition”

  1. I bet you nailed the inner diva after that. I hope the bloke is as frustrated as I am when the better half knows exactly where I might be… I tell myself I’m spontaneous, I act on impulse but there’s more chance of finding my washing up bowl dancing the foxtrot than there is she won’t know…

  3. My plans for Easter Weekend are the same plans I have for all holidays and even birthdays. Avoid the crowds and to do that, I plan to join a small hiking group early Easter Sunday morning and walk away from the crowds into a wilderness area. Then I will return home where I will continue to avoid the crowds while most of the country is out searching for colorful hard-boiled eggs hidden in tall grass and eating hollow chocolate bunnies.

      • LOL

        When I was a teacher (1975 – 2005), I waited for each three day weekend and/or holiday, because I that meant I had more time to catch up with correcting the avalanche of student work that was being turned in and if all my students had completed the work and turned it in I don’t know what I would have done to keep up.

        My average class load was 34 or more in each class, and too many of my students didn’t do much of the classwork or any of the homework that was part of the process that is required to learn what the teacher is teaching.

        I started out teaching in the late 1970s with more than 200 students, six classes a day. After a long struggle, about a decade, the teachers’ union managed to win a planning period and lower the number of classes teachers were required to teach to five so the number of students taught dropped to about 170 or more, a day. With that number of students, there was always a lot of work to correct even with the significant number that didn’t do homework and often never completed classwork.

        The classrooms I taught out of were never designed to hold 34 or more students so they were always overcrowded and stuffy.

        I also loved the Easter one week break because it signaled that after the holiday the school year was coming to a quick end with the long summer break. But we were not paid for the summer break. In the district where I taught, we were paid ten months out of the year and not paid for two of the summer months.

  5. “If ever there’s a point where I can see the similarities between my round head and an ageing turtle, then this is it.” THIS! 😂 It’s so true!

  6. The DaVinci photo was great but I was hoping to see your new haircut–I can’t grow mine past my ears so I always love seeing people with long cool hair!

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