Holiday Haircuts

I took the boys to get their hair cut today. I say cut, but it looks more like a marine jarhead shave. The place we go to is an old fashioned barber’s shop, complete with stripy pole outside and Brylcreem smell inside. The boys have loved going there since they were tiny. It could be the 1970s Technicolour photos of chisel-cheeked heroes on the walls (no ornately coiffed boy bands here) that they like. It could be the good-natured, efficient chaps who wield their shiny scissors with such dexterity. It definitely has something to do with the lollipop they get at the end. But most of all, I think it is just that the whole place is steeped in an atmosphere of benevolent ‘blokeishness’ that you really don’t find anywhere else.
The boys always have their hair cut as short as possible. It cuts down time spent on hair washing and drying, stops them from catching the head lice that their schoolmates are always generously donating to others, and lends them an air of menace. They climb into the barber’s chair with hair that is already shorter than the boy who has just vacated it, and after five minutes with the electric shaver (1 at the back, 2 at the sides, 3 on the top), they emerge looking like rather intimidating newly-shorn sheep.
The reaction of other parents to this extreme haircut is usually mixed. Dads frequently run their hands across the boys’ suede heads and smile nostalgically. Some Mums however, obviously find the whole ‘ASBO chic’ thing a bit too much to bear, and laugh nervously as they manoeuvre their ringletted children away to a safe distance.
We are having fish and asparagus tonight, so I have already uncorked some Gavi La Madonnina Araldica (£6.99 Ocado) which I have mentioned before, as it is a firm favourite of mine. Hopefully there will be some left by the time we sit down to eat.
I realise that, as with all parental decisions, I am probably storing up trouble for myself in the future by having the boys’ hair so short. I can see that the moment they are able to choose their own hair length, they will opt for the full Johnny Depp, and I won’t have any say in it at all. But then, since I won’t have to wash it, dry it, or pull nits out of it, I doubt I will care that much either.