Do blondes have more fun?

I went blonde over the summer. This wasn't the result of a fright, or even a conscious decision, it came about because of a misunderstanding with a hairdresser, obviously not my usual one who is  the lovely Kay at Verdandi in Kirkwall.

No, this was a Welsh hairdresser, although I doubt that her nationality had anything to do with things, except that it alerts readers to the fact that this must have happened while I was in Cardiff, right at the beginning of my almost 6 week trip away from Orkney and sort of explains why, once it had happened, I wasn't in much of a position to do anything about it for quite some time.

 

Now I have no objection to playing with my hair colour. In the normal way of things I get it coloured two or maybe three times a year. It keeps me from turning an unflattering pepper and salt colour as my hair succumbs to the passage of time and does its best to turn grey. Or possibly silver, which would be preferable, but as I don't generally let it get to the stage where you can make that sort of subtle differentiation, who knows?

 

So I go a bit redder in the winter when things need cheering up, and a bit fairer in the summer or when I'm going to Australia. I do not go guinea bright blonde. I don't suit it; not with my complexion not with my figure, not with my personality, so I stay away from it. Sadly it seemed to be the only colour the Welsh hairdresser knew how to apply -  or possibly the only colour she had. It was certainly the colour she had on her own hair.

 

I was, to put it mildly, startled by how it looked. I was even more startled by the way in which it turned my extremely pale foundation into something that looked like it had come straight off an Essex sunbed. Startled and a little bit cross.

 

But there was nothing to be done except live with it so I soldiered on through the summer, trying my best to convince myself that every time I washed it, it got a little bit less bright. And then I went to a conference in Stirling.

 

Now I am not a stranger to the academic conference. I could not in all honesty say that I have been to more academic conferences than I've had hot dinners: but if I changed the phrase to  more than I've had hot dinners that I have cooked myself, we might not be so far off the mark. And never, in all the years I have been attending these things,  never have I had so many middle aged men come up to me, introduce themselves and engage me in conversation. And since it can't have been for my outstanding academic contribution, as I was attending as an observer, not a participant, it must all be down to the newly blonde hair.

 

So do  blondes have more fun? It all depends on where you stand, doesn't it? From my experience I'd say  they probably just get more hassle! but if I were younger who knows what my take on it would be?