Thursday 14 May 2026: April showers

So the poet was up with the larks again yesterday as he had to be ‘oop north’ before 9am. I know we’re already up north, both to me and some of my Brummie pals. But he had to be even further up north, almost in Durham. So he was up and out early and the dog let me go back to sleep for a couple of hours.

When I got up it was for my not-so-dirty cuppa and my reading hour was spent catching up on the internet and social media. I didn’t have a lot to do in my housework hour, just the birds and the dog to feed and the dishwasher to empty. I hadn’t put any washing through as I knew rain was forecast. What I didn’t know that the rain, when it came, would be biblical, but only in showers.

It banged it down. Several times. And in between deluges we had glorious sunshine, blue sky, fluffy white clouds. But it was a bit nippy. A bit April. I did my standing exercises in between chores. I did heel lifts while I waited for the kettle to boil, for example. Standing on one leg at a time (they call it the tree in yoga) while watching the dog in the garden. That kind of thing.

I took the dog out early for his walk, in between showers. It still rained a bit, but nothing like what we’d already had or what was to come. And when I got back I tried to arrange a hair appointment.

I didn’t make an appointment with my regular hairdresser because he put the prices up in January and charged me in December at the January rate. And he put the prices up way too high in my opinion, saying he had a business to run, overheads to pay. Just like every other hairdressing salon and, I think, the mobile hairdressers too. But when he had a go at mobile hairdressers, saying quite insulting things like they weren’t professionals because they didn’t pay business rates for a premises like he did, that gave me two good reasons not to go back to him. And with a house move on the horizon, there were his three strikes.

He had the nerve to say we weren’t moving that far and that when he moves over there too he’ll still have to drive all the way to this village to open his shop, so why couldn’t I? I pointed out that (a) he was getting paid to do precisely that while I was paying for the privilege, and that (b) it was his life/work choice, not mine. And I resolved to never go back even if we never move.

When we moved here it was right after the pandemic and a lot of businesses like hairdressers were only just opening up again. I didn’t select a few because they’d all decided to start charging a deposit in case clients didn’t turn up. I suppose they had good reason to do something like that, but I don’t pay a deposit for any other walk-in service. I was reluctant to do that with someone I didn’t know, but then I suppose if they knew me they’d know they didn’t have to charge me a deposit.

So as I started to hunt for other local hairdressers, I was conscious this might be one of the first things they told me. I found a local business on Facebook on Tuesday evening and fired off a message asking how much they charge for a cut and blow dry. The salon was closed for the day and I expected a response the following day or maybe today. But she responded straight away. And they charge £23 less than the one in my village does. (Apx. $31.) At that price, and with no warning of any deposit, she got my next message too: When could she fit me in?

By yesterday morning, she’d responded with an appointment next Wednesday that I couldn’t make. The one Wednesday in the whole year probably that I couldn’t go. I asked her if I could call her later, and she said yes. So once at my desk, that’s what I did. She offered me another time next Wednesday and then offered me a Friday afternoon, which was better. So next Friday I get new hair!

When we move, I may still look for one over there. But I’ve driven from South Yorkshire to Birmingham before now for a hairdresser. If we get on, I certainly won’t mind driving from South Yorkshire to South Yorkshire for another. And definitely not for £23 less than my previous hairdresser expected me to drive over for.

We received an email from the conveyancing solicitor late on Tuesday evening too, saying there’s just one thing he’s awaiting now and that he’ll be sending the report and the contracts to sign shortly. I fired off an email thanking him for the update, and tried not to squeal a bit with excitement…

A baby starling flew into the office window really hard and completely knocked itself out. I went out to see how it was and it was on it’s back twitching. I picked it up to turn it the right way and stroked it. The twitching stopped but it did latch its feet onto my finger. Its head, though, flopped all over the place and I wondered if it had broken its neck. The dog started to go nuts over this poor bird, jumping up and trying to get it off me. So I locked him indoors and took the bird to a safe place to hopefully recover.

After about half an hour, and following another heavy shower, I went out to check on the bird, but it was still there, still where I’d placed it. And I decided it must have died, poor thing. When the poet got home from his long-distance trip a couple of hours later, though, he too went out to check on it and it had gone. I’m certain it wasn’t taken by a predator, not in daylight. I would have heard it, the dog would have heard it and made a fuss, and there would have been feathers everywhere. So we think it came to and flew off. Yay!

The day before a wood pigeon appeared in the garden with the back of its head half-scalped. We’ve had one of those before and don’t know if it’s a result of fighting, a cat, or a hawk. (We have a resident sparrow hawk.) It seems fine, though, and was eating and drinking and being territorial, as they usually are when they’re not trying to mate. He came back yesterday as I was typing this. How funny!

I started work but couldn’t get into the swing of republishing that next short story on the list. So the first thing I did was Assignment 2 for the WMG workshop on making a living with novels. It was only short and I fired it off straight away before going back to the proofreading/rewriting job, as I wanted it off my desk before starting the next one.