El Andalous - Hair Cut

 

Old and New Hair Style 

I finally plucked up the courage to get my hair cut. The pandemic struck just as I’d been avoiding making the effort to go the hairdressers, so my hair was already needing a cut before all this lockdown malarkey began.

I’ve been cutting my own fringe, but my hair was starting to annoy me as it had got down to my shoulders and each time it brushed against me, I thought it was a mosquito trying to bite me. I’d got quite used to having it longer though, so for a while I delayed going to the hairdresser just out of sheer indecision about what to do with my hair. In the end, I thought I’d go for something similar to my passport photograph but a little bit longer. It was also taking quite some time to push all my hair up into my swimming cap, and it would float around and get in the way when I was snorkeling. So, shorter was definitely more practical.

Since coronavirus, I haven’t really been into Hurghada, so I was a bit nervous about it. We have a new taxi service in Sahl Hasheesh, which is reasonably priced and pretty good, so I used them to go there and then wait for me. The charge for waiting is only 10LE for half an hour (50p), so it was nice not to have to worry about phoning and waiting for a taxi once I was finished.

It was all very safe and I needn’t have worried. They were allowing only one hair customer in and one nail customer in at a time (and there wasn’t anyone there for nails when I was there). I wore a mask throughout, as did my hairdresser. I was rather astonished to find out that they’d been open since about April. I could have gone so much sooner!

I was so emboldened that I even decided to undertake two errands at the same time. I’ve been here almost seven years and have never done that before. I asked the driver to take me to the bank and then wait while I enquired about a savings certificate. Usually, I don’t like doing two things at once because it opens the door for you to be overcharged by the taxi driver and I start to worry. However, this car had fixed prices and I was going only up the road, so I knew the fare shouldn’t be that much. And the waiting fees were fixed, so that wasn’t a worry either.

The bank required masks to be worn as well with limited people inside, so I had to sit on a chair outside until I was served. Fortunately, there was some shade. I kept on jumping up to see if my number was called and then worrying that someone would take my chair, but I was being over-neurotic. Again, it all felt very safe and well-organised.

Anyway, it was all very successful and so much cheaper to do both errands at once (and saved me time, of course). The driver was very transparent and split up the costs for each part of the journey and waiting times for my agreement. He looked a bit as if he thought I was going to argue with him, but it was all within the range of what I was expecting and I had no argument at all.

All in all, it was a pretty good experience of going out again in the wider world!