The House Finishing Hair Cut

My head is fuzzy. In the kitchen the island is scattered with the detritus of the night before. I chip away at tidying up but there is so much other stuff lying around I barely make a start. It's going to take a while. While I'm out in my dressing gown tidying up boxes I chat to Dan and Shelley across the street. They come over for a look. Dan says the patchy concrete may be the concrete curing, rather than a messy tiler. It's a mystery and not the biggest disaster in the world. 

I contact Anjie. It's been 4 years since she cut my hair. In November 2016 I decided I wouldn't cut my hair till the house was finished. It's not finished yet but I'm living in it. Close enough. At the time I understood how anorexics feel. It's about control and I was trying to reclaim some. I've been pulling at the ends so they are not as long as they should be and, as a result, they are straggly. Tui used to have a thing about my hair and I had some horrendous cuts over the years. Harking back to her youth, Tui liked shorter cuts and they often looked like a bowl had been placed over my head and cut around. I grew to dread hair dressers. Short hair doesn't suit me and in the early 2000's I got dreds. Just before I got pregnant with Kahu...19 years ago now. So easy to look after. Towards the end of her life, Tui didn't see my hair, dreds or not. Today I'm eager to close this chapter of my life and am in the chair before Anjie has her scissors out. As she starts she comments how, over the years, she's learned to shape the ends. We have a hair thing happening. I did her hair before her wedding 12 years ago. Big responsibility and a hair dresser had given me a lesson. We made it work.

I feel lighter as I get back in the car. I stop at Lighthouse and tentatively suggest bringing back the Balloons light. It's too big and the wrong style for the house. Alan is ok thankfully. I take the lamp I've had my name on for ages and go to pick up Kahu. Chris wants to relocate his office back in the spare room tomorrow so we need to tidy up. We make a start but there's a lot of stuff to move. 

Tonight is Kahu's first sleep in the house. He's put it off and put it off. But it's unavoidable now. His bed is ready; he's needs to make the space his own. Obstacle to be resolved, curtains. I borrow a hammer and nails and pin up a thin sheet. It's not going to block much light come daytime. My first is a warm up in the clawfoot bath after a swim at the beach. It works. Takes a lot to half fill the bath but it gets the blood flowing from my core. Meanwhile Tim, the ex-groundsman from Hagley Cricket Oval has started the landscape tidy up by spraying the weeds in the long section at the back. I haven't done any gardening for a while and it's a mess- weed wise and level wise. Dancing in town with my new hair, the finish of today.