THERE have been many, many times when I have been extremely tempted to give up the ghost, embrace my roots, and go grey gracefully. I follow an Instagram account called Gombre, which celebrates doing exactly that, and I wish I had the guts to follow through on the empty threat I make to myself every couple of months to embrace my inner Emmylou Harris.
I then succumb to the fear, I make the appointment and my fabulous hairdresser makes my hair brown and glossy again.
When I was growing up, my late granny would wink and say "Sshh, don’t tell anyone," if I caught her dying her hair. This would happen at the kitchen sink. Earlier this year, she was laid to rest aged 91, her hair was curled to perfection and coloured her ‘natural’ brown.
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Despite my declarations to myself that I’m a modern woman and that my ambition is to ‘grow old gracefully’, I can’t see myself letting the hair go.
Both maternity leave and lockdown have presented me with the perfect opportunity, but it hasn’t happened yet. Let’s face it, if I could just embrace the grey, I would save myself both a lot of time and money. However, I don’t think that I’m ready to reveal this to myself, nevermind unleash it on anyone else.
I have been missing the hairdresser's terribly. The salon I go to is like Cheers – everybody knows your name and I always leave with a smile on my face, not just because my hair is in top condition, but also because of the people. I enjoy going there. They are a group of north Belfast women who keep it real, shoot from the hip, make me laugh and they really care about their clients.
To say that Eadaoin, my hairdresser, will not be best pleased when she sees what I have done with the hair she has so lovingly coloured and treated over the last number of years is an understatement. But these are desperate times!
I held out for as long as I could. I even resurrected the Alice bands. In the end, I took the situation into my own hands and thought I had struck gold on the supermarket shelf. Mistake. Let’s just say that Medium Dark Brown is far from that. It’s black.
The only saving grace is that I didn’t consider investing in a pair of scissors; that was a step too far.
Roll on July 6 – which should forever thereafter be known at St Hairdresser’s Day. There might even be grounds to declare a day of obligation.
THE term furlough has entered our lexicon in recent months. This almost magical payment has provided a much-needed lifeline to millions during the Covid-19 emergency. Although it will reduce substantially in the months ahead, the scheme has been extended until October.
I hope that someone somewhere with some influence in government might use the furlough model going forward as something on which to base maternity pay for working mothers who take time off work to look after their newborn babies.
At present, statutory maternity pay is worth 90 per cent of earnings for the first six weeks and then at £151.20 per week for up to 33 weeks. Depending on the job, maternity pay is at the employer’s discretion. The more decent the employer, the more fortunate your situation.
Maternity ‘leave’ is not a holiday. This time gives the mother time recover from both pregnancy and childbirth and to bond with her child. It is a different and important job. The children being looked after during this time are the citizens of tomorrow.
A Unicef report published in 2019 analysed which of the world's countries are the most family friendly. Sweden, Norway and Iceland topped the poll and both the UK and Ireland are in the bottom third of the table.
Family-friendly policies help children to get a better start in life and allow parents much-needed time to balance their work commitments with the demands of the home. Paid maternal leave has proven to boost both the self-esteem and mental health of working mothers.
Given that we have seen government U-turns in social policy in recent days, I’m sure that ‘New mothers to receive between 60-80 per cent of their take-home pay for a period of at least six months’ would be a new normal that would be welcomed by many.
