Advent calendar day 11

I jokingly make reference to my hair in my Twitter bio and folks seems to have picked up on that in a good way. To be honest though, I'm thinking about cutting it all off. You see, the reason I take pictures of myself in black and white is because my hair is a weird combination of white, dark brown (at the back, underneath), with strange blonde strands and yellowing at the edges, making me look like what Billy Connolly refers to as "a Turkish hooker". I don't know at what age I started dyeing my hair to hide the grey hairs as opposed to giving it some highlights, probably in my 30s. My own natural hair colour before it started to fade was a very dark brown, almost black. When I was growing up, my mother was paranoid about things like body odour and bodily functions (my dad used to say her nose was too close to her arse) and the prospect of us having nits/ hair lice would have sent her apopleptic so she never let me have my hair long. I have family snaps of me that look like a boy or a wee pixie.
I (pardon the pun) longed for long hair that I could wear bunches and plaits so when I was older I grew my hair very long. When I was pregnant with Vee I used to wear it in a long single braid that I could sit on - however once she was old enough to sit in the backpack carier, the fun of having her yanking it soon worse off and it was trimmed. My hair is really thick (a lot like me) and grows very quickly so I found that even if I cut it, it would be back to the same length in a year or two. I do hate having my hair cut though - in my dark and distant past i did a college course in hairdressing abd beauty therapy and was always told off for not chatting to the clients - but I can't stand all the small talk "Are you going somewhere nice tonight? Where are you going on holiday?" - I'd prefer to be anaesthetised and wake up with my hair all finished (and knowing my luck - my knicker son back to front!). One of the downsides of my maladies is that I was finding it too sore to manage colouring my roots so about 4 1/2 years ago I took clippers to it and cut it "down to the wood" and have so far let it grow in to what it is now.
In my head I imagine I look like Emmylou Harris but I have caught glimpses of myself where, especially after I have taken it out of braids I look more like the Steward of Gondor.Part of me fancies getting it cut again and maybe colouring it something like red or a proper blonde but the cost of that upkeep is beyond my reach just now, physically as well as financilly. I also have daft notions to dye over the grey in one of those "old lady" shades that you used to see in the 1970s where women tinted their shampooed and set hair with purple or blue rinses - if I say "Mrs Slocombe"
UK folks will know what I mean. Another reason I don't colour my hair though is that I shudder to think how many gallons of toxic chemicals I must have been pouring down the plughole all those years and my wee eco-warrior heart (the same one that moans about lights being left on in our house "It's like the bloody Blackpool Illuminations in here - think of the poor polar bears") couldn't stand it. So I guess I'll just keep my mad old lady hair and keep on loving it, even though it gets everywhere.

Today's song is from the only band I have seen play live this year - it was at the opening show of the Glasgow Comedy Festival and I had won tickets to the O2 Academy. This band, The View are from Dundee and I hope you'll give them a listen. Look out for Scottish actor Martin Compson from "Sweet Sixteen" and "A Guide To recognising Your Saints" xxx