Vanity .......

I sit here at 9.45 pm with the less than subtle of amonia surrounding my weary self....waiting for my tired and wiry grey hair to transform into shining lightest brown ..... yep it's that time again..slap on the old 2 for £6 do it yourself hair colour and become what, I probably should admit, I am no more.
I wonder when the time will come when I shall feel that to be grey will be dignified rather than sad? I found my first clump of grey hair above my right eyebrow ( on my head of course, heaven forbid the facial hair problem had started that young!) at 19, just a week or two after grandpa Collins died suddenly after chopping wood for the old folks in the Norfolk village where he lived with nana, poor nana Collins, plagued by arthritis and ill health and rather enjoying it along with the long suffering of grandpa who was told on a regular basis, I suspect, that he would miss her when she was gone. How cross she was when he went to bed and just died, without so much as a suggestion that he was feeling in the least bit poorly.
So, I found my streak of grey hair and wasn't overly disturbed by it at all, rather attractive in a way, I thought, so I left it alone and didn't think about it at all. Not much progression until I was 26 when the husband left and I was ill, my boys were hurt and I was alone with the weight of the world on my shoulders, I noticed the grey and so became one of the cover it and pretend it's not there brigade.
Somehow, under all that dye, the silver ( so much kinder than grey don't you think?) has taken over.....I am sure that if I were to not colour it I would be totally silver ( actually, white, I think) 42, mother of 6...expected perhaps but vanity just won't let me admit it or show it. I am completely and utterly terrified of being mistaken for the boys' grannie! Actually it did happen once and I was horrified, at a car boot sale a woman looked at Elijah who had grasped hold of a book and said " Oh why don't you ask nanny if she will buy it for you" NANNY? NANNY!?!?! Huh! I all but threw that blasted book at her and walked away as fast as my poor aching body would allow.....'find H-- find H' I chanted in order to stop myself howling aloud at the thought that I must look like a grandma......HANG ON!! HANG ON though..she said Nanny, Oh of course, she must have thought that my beautiful baby was from some upper class family and I was his carer...some young slip of a girl hired to take care of a posh baby while mummy and daddy high fly it all over the world......yeah right, well it made ME feel better when I told myself that anyway!
I found H and God love him ,without even trying, he made me feel better because ( and I swear this is true) , I could scarcely look him in the eye, whilst telling him my story.... and staring at his feet, I couldn't help but notice he had come out in his slippers......oh dear, do our children have any hope of being able to hold their heads up high among their peers , with a grey headed old mum and a bald headed slipper wearing ( in public) dad???

Oh, its May 10th....wasn't I meant to become rich yesterday? Blinking woman and her e.mailed horoscope, was planning on having a salon colour when that important sum of money arrived unexpectedly, oh well, I'm off to rinse and be shiny and light brown....ta ta grey for a week or two.