coiffées al fresco

People travel from Paris to have their hair cut by Fred and Ina. Like Julian, they have brought their talent to the place they love and have made it work for them.

‘If you build it, he will come!’ Julian used to say, quoting the line from Field of Dreams as, glued to computer hour after hour, he built his Shifting Light website. He was right, and Fred and Ina have done the same.

This afternoon a friend and I went over to the Dutch couple’s ‘salon’ for a treat. Driving along the iris lined Chemin des Gargories, we found the rocky path that led to a small ‘cabanon’ with the help of a sky blue sign:

‘Petits Ciseaux’

Greeted with three kisses and seated al fresco with bright green vines and their mini bud clusters weaving over our waiting heads, we were offered a cup of tea and chocolates. Snip snip (I’ve succumbed to the layered thing finally) went the sure scissors of Ina while a blackbird sang to us.

I explained why I have to have no dangly bits when my hair is up;

“Layers are fine but they can’t be too short. It's no good if I can’t see the music behind a strand of hair. They haven’t invented hands-free cello playing yet….”

The cuts are complete (a few dangly bits but they’ll have grown out by the next concert) and the glo-poppies nod their approval from the bank. We succumb to buying special rubber combs to replace hair ripping brushes and fancy ph balance soft shampoo made especially for them, which we are to dilute in the wee bottle, squirting 5 streaks onto our hair and using no conditioner. We go on our way with a dinner invite and manes that dance just like the new leaves of the plane tree in the early summer breeze. It’s such good therapy I am thinking of sending the cats.

Then I think about all the people who are ‘stuck’ where their job is:

“I hate Bristol, but that’s where my job is.”
“If it weren’t for my job I would live in the country”

….and these guys don’t even use the internet!

As Ina says, one does not ‘have’ luck. One takes it.