Sauntering Vaguely Downward

Until today, I had never dyed my own hair. My hair has been green, blue and purple. I've had synthetic locks, real locks [see icon], and real locks with synth locks tied in. There have been periods where I went to the hairdresser religiously for months, and I've also gone years without bothering to do anything at all with my hair apart from wash it regularly. When I've wanted it, I've always had the luxury of being able to pay professionals to colour and style my hair. It's a treat to go to a salon, especially now that I have children, as it's two to three hours I get to myself at a weekend every couple of months.

Obviously this isn't possible under the current circumstances. I colour my hair regularly now that I have a significant amount of grey, and because my last appointment was in January, my roots were getting quite obvious. So the bloke picked up some hair dye for me when he went to the shop today. He didn't have much choice, but since we're not going into the office at the moment, he got me an exciting electric red. Or at least it was on the box. As you can see above, my hair - at least the part that's not grey - is extremely dark. So the colour took variably, shall we charitably say.

I'm pretty sure I'll be straight back in the salon once it re-opens. It's not just the unintentional two-tone effect, it's the fact that it took me ages to apply the stuff.

( +1, outdoors )

( +5 )

Saturday

Got my hair did.

This is me and Spanish Colleague, at Polish Colleague's leaving do last week. I'm putting this up because it feels like a long time since I posted a photo of myself in nice clothes. I love this dress. The bloke bought it for me at MadChique, a boutique just on the edge of the red light district in Amsterdam.

The rest of this post's content is unrelated to the photo. Sorry/not sorry! Yesterday, one of my Dreamwidth circle brought their daughter to London. Said daughter is about to start secondary school and likes science. We (daughter and I) have been corresponding periodically for a couple of years, and I thought it would be nice for her to visit the lab and see science and engineering in action.

They arrived just after noon and so got to experience the utter randomness that is the lab's lunchtime conversation, as well as being introduced to all of the lab members who aren't currently on holiday. One of the more flamboyant undergraduates currently doing a summer research project with us dropped an f-bomb. (He sends his profuse apologies, DW friend.)

Then we went downstairs and got a proper lab tour underway. Daughter got to see the Solar Orbiter qualification model sensor being tested with its spacecraft simulator, and the JUICE breadboard model electronics being tested with its spacecraft simulator. Daughter got to see the JUICE engineering model sensor being put into the thermal chamber and heated up. Daughter got to see the breadboard electronics for the Radcube instrument (Radcube is a CubeSat, so very small) being tested. Everyone in lab was very happy to talk to a keen young person about what they do, and Daughter seemed keen to absorb all they had to say.

Daughter also got to see our cupboard full of Space Junk. Well, some of it is space junk, like the charred bits of the Cluster I instruments we built. The four Cluster I spacecraft exploded 35 second after launch, and pieces of it were subsequently fished out of the swamps of French Guyana by some (presumably very disgruntled) French foreign legionnaires. The four Cluster II spacecraft have been in orbit around the Earth since 2000 and are still producing science data 18 years later. The non-space-junk includes scale models of various spacecraft we've build parts for, and flight spares, and the bit of glass subjected to deep dielectric discharge, leaving a pattern that looks like a frozen lightning strike.

All too soon it was time for Yet Another Telecon, so I escorted my visitors downstairs lest they get trapped forever in the rabbit warren that is our building. They said goodbye and went off to enjoy the nearby Science Museum and Natural History Museum unhindered by overenthusiastic scientists. Fingers crossed we made a good impression!

New Hair Day selfie. My hair has been dyed, straightened and I'm wearing a crushed red velvet dress.

I can now safely claim to have established a routine for seeing a hairdresser regularly. It's something I've been wanting to do because being a parent to small children often makes me feel too tired to look after myself properly, and having well-groomed hair helps to combat that. So. Nice hair achieved. ( CN: body image talk )

I was going to write a grumpy post, but the bloke came home today with a copy of "The Best of the Pogues arranged for piano", so rather than chew over the circumstances under which I became grumpy, I'm going to go make a very slow hash of Dirty Old Town or something.