Last week was full of treats - some expected, some unexpected.
Hairdressers were finally allowed to open again on Monday after having been in lockdown since mid-December, and you bet I was one of the first ones to have an appointment! My hairdresser is also my neighbour, and our relationship resembles a friendship more than a customer service one.
The mood at the salon was chatty, bubbly and cheerful, with the three hairdressers all being excited and happy to be working again, and their customers equally excited and happy to get their hair taken care of again.
My last visit had been well before Christmas, and my grey-white roots were showing more and more week after week. I was determined to go all grey/white now and stop the colouring for good, but was advised against it; the part of my hair that was still brown would have required rather aggressive chemicals to get rid of the colour, and as I do not have much hair to begin with, we agreed on a scheme of slowly fading out over the next few months. Maybe by late summer/early autumn, my hair will be all natural, and I will only go to the hairdresser's for cuts, not colour.
The day was beautiful, sunny and mild. I met my sister for a lunchtime walk, as we both had conference calls later on and well into the evening.
Tuesday began with temperatures below freezing, but it was another sunny day and warmed up to about 14C (57F). I had no meetings between 10:30 am and 2:00 pm, and treated myself to an early walk, extending my lunch break.
 | |
| The colours were incredibly brilliant! |
The deer park that has featured often on my blog is usually so popular on weekends that O.K. and I don't go there when he is here. On a Tuesday pre-lunch time, there weren't many people about, and I enjoyed every minute of that sunny walk.
On Wednesday, I was required to go to work outside my own four walls for the first time in months! It felt strange but good to take a train to work, and although the sky was a solid grey and it was a bit cooler than the day before, I took advantage of being in Marbach for work and went for a walk around there once the meeting with my client ended.
 |
| View across the river Neckar from Schiller National Museum, Marbach |
 |
| The museum, part of the complex of buildings where I work occasionally |
I went for lunch at my parents' on Thursday and an after-work walk with my sister, a mix of sun and clouds making for a beautiful sunset:
No walk on Friday, as I was busy after work with food shopping, cleaning and generally getting everything ready for the weekend. It was rather cold, with a sleety/haily shower just when I left the supermarket. O.K. arrived at around 8:00 pm.
All weekend was cold, but sunny, and so we decided against running but went walking on both Saturday and Sunday instead. Nowhere spectacular, as we left the car where it was, limiting our range of possibilities to familiar paths on the fields around town.
Cold days call for hot food, and so it was a chili with sweet potatoes on Saturday and something resembling mac & cheese on Sunday.
My part of Germany is holding a general election on Sunday, and my sister and I are volunteering, working at one of the many venues dotted around town where voters can go. We are rather excited and looking forward to this - it is something we have wanted to do for a long time. Having to get up very early on Sunday and being away most of the day and much of the evening, it makes no sense for O.K. to drive all the way here for the weekend, and so we won't be seeing each other until the weekend after.
Tomorrow, I am scheduled for an examination and planning my eye operation. That is an appointment I am not looking forward to, but it is necessary, and I know I will be in good hands at the clinic; it is the same where I was for my first eye surgery in 2018.
Have a good week!
That dish of food looks delicious. Good luck with the eye examinations.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Pat!
DeleteThe food was nice, hot and filling. It only lacked salt, I am always too cautious with it.
Nice to have had a week of treats. We certainly need a few treats these days to keep going whenever the weather or the news becomes a bit too much.
ReplyDeleteBest of luck with the eye exam.
Thank you, Mary!
DeleteThe weather has been mostly good for us here in terms of walking, but we really do need some rain.
Even just waking up to the beautiful song of the blackbird is a treat, and I have that every morning!
Your hair looks cute! Much longer than mine as I gave myself a COVID haircut and buzzed it 1 inch all over! I thought it would turn out longer than it did but...it will grow, right? I have been telling myself that for weeks but it is slow going. Oh well, no one is looking at me! Good luck with the eye appointment!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Ellen!
DeleteIf I had decided to have my hair cut to an overall length of 1 inch, I would have gotten rid of ALL the colour in one single go - but I didn't have the courage for that. Therefore, for now I am stuck with a few more months of colouring...
Well your hair looks good, and I hope the gradual fading out will work out well, too! When I managed to get a haircut in January, it had been almost five months since the last time for me... I've let my hair fade naturally since many years but since last spring (when my hairdresser did go into lock-down for a while) I've been letting my fringe grow out. It was annoying while it was "half way" during summer/autumn, but now it's finally about the same length as the rest of my hair - i.e. nonexistent - and I think I'll probably prefer to keep it like that. It matters less now if 2, 3 or 4 months between haircuts! ;)
ReplyDeleteBest of luck with the eye examination and surgery! ♥
Thank you, Monica!
DeleteI am not totally happy with my hair (but then I never am, it is just too thin and too sparse to look really good), but something had to be done, and I was glad I managed to have the appointment on Monday morning before work.
Yes, trying to grow out a fringe can be rather annoying!
Your hair looks great! I'm happy to hear you are starting to get some things opening up and hairdressers are a big one. I understand how you feel about coloring your hair. When I retired at 63 I stopped coloring my hair and let it go natural. I'm not totally grey/white yet but it is doing a gradual change that I think the pandemic has sped up a little!
ReplyDeleteYour walks look like they were wonderful and yes, those colors are brilliant! How wonderful that both you and your sister have volunteered to help with the election day voting. It will be a new experience for you and I hope you both enjoy it. It is a long day though so be prepared for that!
I didn't know you were having another eye surgery, or maybe I forgot. Is this the same eye as before or the other one? You know I send you all my best wishes for for both the examination and the surgery!
Thank you, Bonnie! As I said to Monica (above your comment), I am not totally happy with it, but it's alright.
DeleteI started to have the first grey hairs before I was 30, and by the time I was 40, it was quite a salt and pepper mix on my head. I always said I'd stop colouring at 50 - now I am almost 53 and still do it.
It was in October, I think, that I first mentioned that I will have another eye operation. This time it will be both eyes. It is not the same thing as last time. More in another post - and your best wishes are very appreciated, Bonnie! Surgery is never something nice to look forward to, but when the eyes are concerned, it is a little scary.
Darling Meike,
ReplyDeleteYour hair looks great. In our experience, it is always a good idea to listen to a talented hairdresser. They can take years off or add years on with a snip of the scissors and are far less expensive than other remedial treatments that one might be tempted into to disguise the onset of years. Yes, a talented hairdresser is a magician and we made a wise move when we realised that we lived opposite to one since that has enabled her to pop in between clients to our outer hall, windows and door wide open, to tame our locks. This has been a COVID luxury for us and now, you too have been given a hair beauty treatment. Fabulous!
Once again, we have enjoyed walking along with you and, also, imagining ourselves in your cosy dinners with such delicious dishes to eat. You are definitely making the best of things and with every day, Spring springs forth a little more and we do seem to be moving towards the light at the end of the tunnel.
You must be nervous about your eye surgery. Our eyesight is so precious and you are sounding very brave about it all. Whenever we have been faced with really tricky situations, we try to project ourselves beyond them into the future when all is well and the surgery is over. You are in our thoughts, but we have every confidence that you will be in good, professional hands and the end result will surely be worth it. Have courage!
Dear Jane and Lance,
DeleteThank you! I am not quite happy with my hair (and have never been), but it has the advantage of being easy to handle and quick to dry; not like my Sicilian sister-in-law who used to have to plan when to wash her hair so that it would fit in with her schedule, and needed twice the amount of shampoo, conditioner and other beauty products due to the mass of long black curls on her head.
My hairdresser is also just round the corner from my house (I can see her living room from my kitchen), but she was not allowed to work since December 16, so that closeness brought no advantage.
I am neverous about the surgery; everything to do with my eyes has thas effect on me. But as you say, I know I will be in good, professional hands, and there is a good chance that afterwards, my sight will be better than it has been since I was 7 years old.
I like your haircut! It looks good. Speaking of looking good, that mac n cheese looks delicious!
ReplyDeleteI'm sure it was nice to work outside your home again even for a day. I've considered going to work a kind of respite from all the restrictions of the past year. All of our students are coming back full time face to face after Easter since our teachers and staff will all be fully vaccinated by then. I get my second shot this Friday and I can hardly wait to see friends again in person!
I wish you the very best of luck with your eye surgery. When is it scheduled?
Thank you, Jennifer! I guess I will never feel really good about my hair; it is just too thin and sparse to look nice. But I can at least make the best of it :-)
DeleteHooray for your 2nd shot on Friday, and all teachers and staff at your school being vaccinated by Easter! That is great, and I bet the day when the kids can come back to school properly can not come too soon for them.
The surgery was originally planned to be for both eyes at the same time, but I have been to the clinic today to talk it through. We are now doing the eyes one after the other, with 4 weeks between them, starting on June 16.
Meike, when we meet in person - which I hope happens some day my dear - we will both be silver-haired ladies with short locks!!! What fun, and neither of us will need hours to get ready fiddling with our hair. I'm a wash and wear gal now - no more dryers and flat irons etc. One of the good things due to COVID - there are a few - is no more color and going natural was made much easier this past year.
ReplyDeleteBob and I will be thinking of you as you have your surgeries this spring. We're sure all will go well and the outcome sounds awesome if you are able to have better eyesight than you've struggled with for so long.
Sending hugs and good spring day ahead dear XX
Mary, that is something to look forward to :-)
DeleteI have never needed hours to get ready, I just can't be bothered - maybe I should have invested more time in my hair when I was younger and taken better care of it, but it is what it is.
Thank you; my first surgery is on June 16, so it will be summer by then. I am optimistic about it all, too.
Many hugs back
M xx
I like your haircut and color. When you stop with the color you will be unhappy with the limpness of your hair. It is almost like you have half the hair you had with color. I did this and am considering going back!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Jill. My hair being limp, thin and sparse as it is, can hardly be much "worse"... but if I'm unhappy with the natural look, I can always go back to colouring - I guess my hairdresser will be happy to help!
Delete"...something resembling mac & cheese". Intriguing. It looks scrumptious to me. As it was only a resemblance I wonder what it really was!
ReplyDeleteThe pasta were not maccaroni but gobbetti (much smaller than macs), and the sauce was nowhere near as creamy as a proper mac & cheese requires. It was more or less a putting together of what I had in the fridge, but we liked it well enough - hot and filling, just right after a long walk on a relative cold day.
DeleteConsidering that you had lockdown until very recently you have been busy being out and about. I wish that were possible here too. I envy you all that lovely contact with family and friends.
ReplyDeleteNice food, by the way. Tasty looking. Does it smell as good as it looks?
It smelled nice! Food in the oven always gives such a good, warm scent to the kitchen (and the entire flat if I do not close the kitchen door).
DeleteWe do not have the UK's system of "bubbles" here, but are allowed to meet one person outside our own household at a time. For me, that one person is my sister, and when I visit my parents, I am that one person for them. Couples who do not live together (like O.K. and myself) are allowed to visit each other and then count as one household.
From this week onwards, the number of people allowed to meet has risen to five, but I have not yet met anyone apart from my sister.
Thankfully, we were never restricted in terms of walking, and so I have always been able to go for those walks after work and on weekends.
Oh I forgot, good luck with the eye op.
ReplyDeleteThank you!
DeleteSeems like things are getting back to "normal", whatever that was. I have to wait until 12th April for the hairdressers and have to hide away my scissors which are tempting me to have a go! Hope everything goes well for you.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Linda!
DeleteAs long as masks are mandatory in so many situations, and I can't meet my friends for the pub quiz or go out dancing, things won't really feel normal to me. Also, I must admit I fear another wave with shops etc. opening already but so few people vaccinated yet (in this country).
Lots beginning to happen there. Just goes on the same here.
ReplyDeleteSome of it I find rather worrying, especially as so few people have been vaccinated in this country. If I remember correctly, the figures are an embarrassing less than 4 % of the population, while the UK reports around 26 %.
DeleteGood morning, Meike. I'm very late to the party. Just catching up on one or two people. I'll save my good wishes until nearer the time but I do hope that the dates go to plan. I have the first appointment with my barber when she opens on 5 April. She obviously thinks I need it and texted me as soon as the opening date became known. I have so little hair she can use me to get her hand back in so to speak. Our little Island has done brilliantly with the vaccine and I am due to have my second dose when I get back from hospital in Glasgow next week.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Graham. The surgery dates seem still far away, but I know that time will pass very quickly, and before I know it, I will find myself early one morning on the way to the clinic.
DeleteAll the best for your hospital stay in Glasgow, and the second jab!