Thursday 13 February 2014

Good hair day

One of the things about moving to a new place is finding a hairdresser. Today I went to one I hadn't visited before, and it turned out that the salon was celebrating its twentieth birthday and they were giving out free fizzy wine to all the customers. What a day! So I sat with my little glass of Prosecco while such a nice lass chopped about at my hair and blew it round in circles and did something with my fringe. It's a great relief to be able to see where I'm going again. The only thing is, I frequently find myself in the company of a lot of Mistmantle animals with plenty to say.

Sepia was very complimentary about it. Fingal started to say something but Padra stepped on his foot. Apple was admiring - 'Ooh, it looks very nice on you, my dear, I might 'ave it done meself but I don't know that me fur is long enough, still might have me tail curled up a bit, and it ain't no good the 'edge'ogs trying it'. And then all those little girl squirrels from Sepia's choir got terribly excited and squeaky and went off to play hairdressers. It reminded me of that moment in Raven War when they all get washed then run around in the sunshine and their fur foofs up.

That actually happened to a friend of LYS. I mean, she didn't get foofed, the squirrels did. She worked in wildlife rescue one summer and had to wash a family of four squirrels who had set up home under an old car. Now, you and I know that the place for a squirrel is up a tree, not under a car, and certainly not under one that leaks oil all the time. So she had to de-oil these squirrels, wash them, dry them as best she could, and put each squirrel in a box wrapped in a towel. She came back to find four damp squirrels and four shredded towels.

Apparently it is possibly to dry a squirrel with a hairdryer if you use a quiet gentle setting. So she did. And they came out looking like surprised pom-poms.

2 comments:

Clara said...

Glad you had a good time getting your hair foofed!

My family and I once had a total of five baby squirrels come crawling pitifully up to our house, (we live back in some woods) so we had to take care of them. We never washed them, but we did have to feed them. One of the sweet little fellows had a hurt paw and I named him Juniper! We sent them off to an animal shelter, and were set free when they got old enough to live alone. I'm pretty sure they all got named Mistmantle names!

margaret mcallister said...

How lovely! Well done you! I hope Juniper's paw gets better.

My theory is that animal mothers tell their babies from a very early age - 'if ever you're afraid or ill-treated or lost, this is where you should go...'. I say this because they have a way of turning up on the right doorstep. Strays practically hurl themselves at my sister.