Short, Back and Gangrene

Short, Back and Gangrene

A habit of mine when visiting cities in other countries is to go for a wander, often stopping off at a local salon to get a pedicure and manicure - and sometimes my fringe trimmed. My fringe is a separate entity with has a life of its own, growing twice as fast as the rest of my hair and often reaching well past my nose in what seems like record time. During my international salon perambulations, I've had a full Brazilian wax (not to be repeated) in a salon in a distinctly dodgy area of Belo Horizonte, Brazil while listening to the local ladies discuss what's going on in the TV "novelas" and had my toenails filed and buffed in various cities across most of Europe. Things tend to go swimmingly.

Today, after the annual meeting of the Iberian River Restoration Centre that I had travelled to Albacete in Castilla-La Mancha to attend, I went to a local salon. It was strangely empty and silent, which is odd since Spanish women take great pride in their hair and nails and normally pile into such establishments.

My fringe needed a trim, since it reached (note use of past tense) well past my nose, blocking my view of some of the excellent talks given at the said meeting. My nails also needed some TLC. I entered and after an exchange of semi-Spanish Portuguese and pointing at my head - I made it understood that I only wanted my fringe trimmed followed by a manicure and pedicure (pointing at extremities).

The lady that took care of me was extremely wide, extremely short - incredibly sweet - and stone deaf - hearing aids in both ears. She enthusiastically took her scissors to my fringe. Maybe I explained fringe length in imperial units and she only does metric, but my eyebrows are now permanently exposed to sunlight - while wearing my hair down - for the first time in a decade. They are in shock. So am I. I am trying to talk myself into thinking I look rad and a edgy. In reality, I look like have escaped from an state institute where the pudding bowl look is "de rigueur" . It will grow. Very quickly I hope.

The wide, short, deaf lady then took about 2 hours to do my manicure and pedicure, breathing heavily as she meticulously painted daisies on my nails with varnish and as the circulation slowly drained from my digits. She smiled and said I should come back next time I'm in Albacete as I dragged my numb and bloodless feet back out of the salon and back to my room. Luckily they have not turned black and some feeling has returned to my toes and fingers.

No nature notes here. But I'll make an extremely tenous link: "Springwatch" is on BBC2 at the moment and is absolutely excellent. I was glued to every programme while staying at my Mum's in London last week. If you don't live in UK and can access via streaming - watch it. It's great. Chris Packham and Martin Hughes-Games have my dream job, damn them, and the latter also gets to ride a motorbike. Damn their eyes.