The perfect day

Escaping my confinement, I went to Covent Garden for the day. It only took a day for me to develop the habit of hanging my umbrella from the outside of my bag. This way, no matter what the indecisive weather I need not be inconvenienced but having to endlessly take the umbrella in and out of my bag. I could simply open it without detatching it.

I had remembered Covent Garden as being very expensive. And so it was, but not as much as in my poverty-stricken recollections. In fact, there were things in the market that I could actually afford. I celebrated by spending everything in my wallet, and becoming the proud owner of an amber ring amongst other useless items.

The ring itself was bought at a discount. I tried on every ring in the nice Canadian man's stall, but they were all so very very delicate. In other words, didn't even come close to fitting on my savaloy fingers. The only one that did had a much larger stone and was more expensive. But the nice Canadian man took pity on the fat-fingered girl and gave her a discount so that she too could be elegant and bejeweled.

Just as I was beginning to wonder what to do for the rest of the day a voice called from behind me "Excuse me madame, excuse me". I turned around to observe a cute guy calling to me. This is not something that frequently happens to me, so I wondered what he wanted.
"Excuse me but I am a hairdresser and I am looking for a hair model today. Do you have time for a hair cut?"

Wha?

"Ummm... maybe." I said. "What is involved?" Wondering if I would follow him into a side street only to be mugged and stabbed. Or perhaps he was legitimate, but would cut my hair into a purple mohawk.
"Just a hair cut. Or a colour. Or both. Whatever you would like?"
"Okay..." The vision of the purple mohawk was slowly retreating. "Can you do it like this only shorter?"
"Sure. Whatever you like."
Okay. Not so bad, if legitimate. Cute guy (undoubtedly gay), cut hair for free. Could be fun?
As I followed him to the salon I started to wonder why he had chosen me. Was my hair really so bad that this man felt compelled to drag me off the street and cut it for me?

But it was great. "Danielle" (he even pronounced it like the girls name, although I will give him some leeway for being french canadian) was new at the London salon and needed to prove to them that he could cut hair, even though he had already been a hairdresser for three years. I got my hair cut and coloured, while being served cups of tea and buried in gossip magazines. I was too embarassed to admit I had coloured my hair myself, when Danielle complained that the previous hairdresser hadn't done a very good job. And then I walked out of the salon newly coiffed, glancing casually at the price list on my way out. If I'd paid for it (not that I would have) it would have been 80 pounds.

Nice day?