In April 2005 my hairdresser pissed me off royally. I won’t go into details, but let’s just say I was left with an expensive mess.

In that eye-rolling moment of “oh, crap, I have to find a new hairdresser” I had one of those rare flashes of insight that actually make a difference to how my life goes. It went something like “hey, wait a minute…I hate going to hairdressers…”!

So I stopped going to hairdressers and let my hair grow!

It’s been nearly nine years and my hair is long enough now to brush the chair when I sit. Not quite long enough to sit on, but it still seems to be growing, so it may still get there. Sometimes I wear it in a bun or in a single braid down my back; most of the time I wear it in two braids.

My latest hair project is to learn how to sew it crown-fashion like Lucia, Minerva and Europa Anguissola playing chess in this 1555 painting by their sister, Renaissance painter Sofonisba Anguissola (who lived to be a little old lady of 93).