Oh well, a touch of grey

I'm deciding to 'transition'.

Actually, life is one long transition, isn't it?

I've discovered that this is a term for the process of deciding to give up dying my hair and go grey. I may have actually gone grey years ago. My brother has had greyish bits since his 20's. I have dyed my hair assorted colours since I was about 14. I have no idea what my natural hair looks like.

Recently, though, I've decided the reddish brown I've been using for years doesn't work with my skin tone any more. I feel that I've started to look like Hilary Devey. Don't get me wrong, I love the woman. She's amazing. But she makes no pretense that that is her own hair. Then I was sitting in a meeting at work and one of the other women there had really solid, unnaturally dark brown hair. It really didn't work with her age or colouring - and it could be me.

I had the reddish brown dye removed, which left me with light gingery hair and lots of grey sprinkles. Then I had it all covered with a light ash semi-permanent colour, which will tone down the red and make the first growing out bits easier, apparently. The colour works better with my skin, but there is still a lot of grey at the roots. 

So, I'm transitioning. Real photos when I can get j to hover above me with a camera. In the meantime, this is how I will be seeing myself:

Reshuffle

We've been playing musical cars recently. j bought himself a car of his own so we are cramming three into a space designed for one and a half, really. As J is obsessed with (amongst other things - he really likes to work a good obsession!) the newest car being stolen or damaged, he has instituted a complex hierachy of parking in front of the house. As I leave for work earlier than everyone else, I now take a different car from the one I was driving, in the interests of sanity and a getaway that doesn't involve moving three cars.

In the resulting reshuffle, I ended up separated from my loving collated mix CD collection this week. I find it hard to convey my horror at finding I was trapped in a car with a choice of Roger Whittacker, Frank Zappa or Smooth FM for company.

Aftermath

We had quite a storm last night. The wind came from the west and was so strong, gusting onto the back of the house, that we wre very glad we'd taken down the eucalyptus tree in the garden this summer.

Our morning walk took us along the beach at Seaton Carew, this morning. The wind was still quite wild, blowing onto the sea.

The sand war eroded so far back by the storm that this section of rocks was exposed. We don't see these wooden piers very often.

These mature and barnacle-encrusted mussels were ripped from their mussel beds and devoured by herring gulls.


On the way home we stopped off at North Gare. It's a Site of Special Scientific Interest. Today it was festooned with plastic that escaped from the nearby landfill site.

This is where it came from:

It doesn't normally feature in my pictures of the area, but today it does in an attempt to shame the owners/authorities.

Bizarrely, we were reminded of the prayer flags and rubbish that are on Everest.

I want to live a Salvager lifestyle.

Open publication - Free publishing - More 2011

Outrage

The TV news provokes feelings of fear, outrage and terrible upset this week.

Interactive map of incidents

Why are there so many children and young people on the streets? It's the bigger picture of the micro-issues I face at work most days. No respect, large pockets of poor parenting. Are we powerless? I really feels like it. Our government can't do anything, the police force can't do anything. There are no social controls on the rioters.

These people are not rioting as a protest. If you want to make a political protest, you don't do it by setting fire to Miss Selfridges or by stealing mobile phones.

I'm sickened by the whole business.

ETA:

Just found this picture. Don't know where it came from originally.