Sosban fach

More domestic nirvana. It just keeps coming. This one's about cooking pans. But it does have a happy ending.

The intelligent reader will easily guess that the title of this post, Sosban fach, is Welsh for 'something saucepan', and they would be right. In fact it means 'little saucepan' and these words come from a very well-known traditional Welsh folk song that I learned a version of when young and in school. For I am of course Welsh, and I had to learn the language until aged eleven. It was, in my time - the 1950s and 1960s - already a compulsory subject in the infant and junior schools, and had I stayed in Wales I'd have had to study it up to O-level standard. And I imagine that nowadays, in even more nationalistic times, all children throughout Wales have to be passably fluent in Welsh before they can go to University.

I mean, Wales can't aspire to true nationhood without all its citizens being competent in the national tongue. I hear that the Welsh Assembly - that is, the devolved National Parliament in Cardiff - enforce compliance using the Heddlu, the official Language Police, whose cars are seen racing everywhere with flashing blue lights, striving to intercept persons who are not speaking Welsh, and then hauling them off to places of correction. Which for women means a brainwashing process at Castell Goch (the 'Blood-Red Castle') that involves lace-making, playing the harp, cooking faggots, and sitting around wearing a shawl and a very tall pointed black hat with a frilly lace lining. And for men - poor things - a spell down Pwll Mawr (the 'Big Pit'), hewing at the coalface. Mind you, it would be good Welsh anthracite - some consolation, I suppose.

I tell you, boyo, it's been a close thing many a time. There I would be, openly walking the streets of some Welsh town, sans shawl and pointed hat, when something about my appearance or way of speaking would get shocked locals fumbling feverishly for their phones, and dialling the Heddlu Helpline. Next thing, the Language Police would be screaming into town, eager to ask questions and if necessary make an arrest. Thank goodness I always carry a fake passport in the name of Lwsi Melffordd, and can say 'Sosban fach, boyo!' convincingly and well.

Truth to tell, I'd be in the stew good and proper if the Heddlu asked me to recite every line of the folk song, because I can only remember one line from my early schooldays: Sosban fach, yn berwi ar y tân, which means 'Little saucepan, boiling on the fire'. There are of course many more lines, and verses, and a chorus. Here's the Wikipedia article on the whole thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sosban_Fach. And here is one folk singer's full version:

Sospan Fach - Little Saucepan - a Welsh Folk Song. Singer: Hanna Morgan.

(Note: Artists often sing their own versions of this song,
sometimes with verses and choruses played in a different order)

Verses
Mae bys Meri-Ann wedi brifo, Mary-Ann has hurt her finger,
A Dafydd y gwas ddim yn iach. And David the servant is not well.
Mae'r baban yn y crud yn crio, The baby in the cradle is crying,
A'r gath wedi sgrapo Joni bach. And the cat has scratched little Johnny.
Sosban fach yn berwi ar y tân, A little saucepan is boiling on the fire,
Sosban fawr yn berwi ar y llawr, A big saucepan is boiling on the floor,
A'r gath wedi sgrapo Joni bach. And the cat has scratched little Johnny.
   
Mae bys Meri-Ann wedi brifo, Mary-Ann has hurt her finger,
A Dafydd y gwas ddim yn iach. And David the servant is not well.
Mae'r baban yn y crud yn crio, The baby in the cradle is crying,
A'r gath wedi sgrapo Joni bach. And the cat has scratched little Johnny.
Sosban fach yn berwi ar y tân, A little saucepan is boiling on the fire,
Sosban fawr yn berwi ar y llawr, A big saucepan is boiling on the floor,
A'r gath wedi sgrapo Joni bach. And the cat has scratched little Johnny.
   
Mae bys Meri-Ann wedi gwella, Mary-Ann's finger has got better,
A Dafydd y gwas yn ei fedd; And David the servant is in his grave;
Mae'r baban yn y crud wedi tyfu, The baby in the cradle has grown up,
A'r gath wedi huno mewn hedd. And the cat is 'asleep in peace'.
Sosban fach yn berwi ar y tân A little saucepan is boiling on the fire,
Sosban fawr yn berwi ar y llawr A big saucepan is boiling on the floor,
A'r gath wedi sgrapo Joni bach. And the cat has scratched little Johnny.

Chorus
Dai bach y sowldiwr, Little Dai the soldier,
Dai bach y sowldiwr, Little Dai the soldier,
Dai bach y sowldiwr, Little Dai the soldier,
A gwt ei grys e mas. And his shirt tail hanging out.

As you can see, there is a temporal progression, people growing up and dying as the song proceeds, though all the while the little saucepan is boiling away on the fire. Meaning, I suppose, that the little things at home never change. I don't remember anything about a 'sosban fawr' - a big saucepan - but I put that down to frivolity and inattention to my studies when young.

This is - look you - a clean version. I'm told that at games of rugby the crowd uses other words. (Really? Rugby words perhaps? No, I can't believe it. That sounds as unlikely as anything you might have read above)

But back to reality.

In late March and early April 2014 I bought two new frying pans while on holiday - a small one from Wroes in Bude...

...and a few days later, a larger one from Goulds in Dorchester. Here they both are, in action in the caravan:

They were both on offer at irresistible prices - £14.99 and £18.00 respectively - and I didn't resist. They weren't traditional teflon non-stick pans. They were 'ceramic'. Hence their very light-coloured cooking surface. And both were quite deep, rather like very wide saucepans. The brand was Naturepan, a new one to me. I was swayed a bit by a comment made at the till, in Wroes I think, by another customer. She told me that Naturepans were very good. She swore by them. Well! Say no more.

And these new pans not only looked great, and suited the gas hobs at home and in my caravan, but they cooked really well.

But within months a minor defect in the larger pan became evident, a small crack in that smooth cooking surface. It didn't bother me at first. But the cracks proliferated, particularly during 2016. So that nearly three years on, by late 2016, the larger pan was beginning to look rather shabby.

This was unreasonable, because I do look after my cooking stuff, always using silicone spoons and spatulas, and washing them up carefully, never abusing them in any way. I found myself in the market again for a new set pans, or at least a new larger pan.

Sussex is well-endowed with cookshops, but I'd discovered that Horsham (only half an hour away) now had a big new Waitrose and John Lewis At Home. John Lewis! The obvious first place to look. Parking was easy, and cheap. (Well, I call £2 for two hours 'quite cheap' nowadays) And the store did have a nice selection of good-quality pans, ranging from mid-range to pretty expensive. I looked at the normally good-value Tefal range, but thought them unexpectedly pricey. And another thing: the shape and feel of those Tefal handles was wrong. This matters an awful lot to me. If the pan doesn't feel right, then for me it's a no-no. I know that many would dismiss this as being over-pernickety, but I won't sacrifice comfort in the hand for prestige looks. For this reason I don't favour metal handles, such as you find on very expensive stainless steel or copper or cast iron pans. They get hot, and impossible to touch without oven gloves on, which introduces the possibility of one's grip slipping, with potentially dire results.

John Lewis's own ranges had much to recommend them, and I especially liked these silicon-handled pans, one small, one large, which would exactly match the handle-style of the small John Lewis wok I used in the caravan (I would take wok and both frying pans away with me on holiday):

But they were not cheap. The smaller one would cost £18. The larger one £32. A £50 investment to buy both. Hmmm! I walked away - keeping them in mind, but wanting to see what else was available in Horsham that afternoon.

I went next to Robert Dyas in Horsham's West Street, and saw some less expensive Tefal pans on offer there, in a two-pan set at only £20-odd:

Now this was good value. But the feel of the Tefal handles wasn't quite right. It was OK, but plasticky, and not a patch on the sure-grip silicone feel of the two John Lewis pans. Designed for larger hands too, I'd say. Robert Dyas also had a neat range of their own:

Ah, one could put together a two-pan set for just £19! I thought these were more attractive than the Tefal pans, but I still hesitated. This time it was about weight. They were slightly too lightweight. Oh dear. Was that a fatal flaw? I pondered the cooking issues involved. Well, there was a Steamer Trading Cookshop up the road, in East Street. They'd have as much on display as John Lewis, although it might all be more expensive still. Worth a look, though. And I'd have to pass Robert Dyas again on my way back to John Lewis...

Horsham's branch of Steamer Trading Cookshop was very large, very well stocked, and many of the pans on display were clearly upmarket. In fact there were expensively-dressed and booted ladies and gentlemen in the shop who were clearly the very kind of customer who had money and wanted impressive pots, pans and other gadgets for their stylish homes. Not that I was obviously Miss Dowdy in their company. But I wasn't going to spend £100 or more. For, as expected, STC didn't have any budget pans. I was impressed with what they did have, but it wasn't what I wanted.

Back to Robert Dyas. No, the pans there didn't scream 'Lucy! Buy me!' - or if they did, I was deaf to them. They were great value for money, and might well prove enduring, but they wouldn't engender pride of possession.

So ten minutes later I was back at John Lewis, wondering whether to buy both their own-brand pans, or just the large one. Did I spend a painful £50 or an easier-to-bear £32? In the end I bought both, partly because they had only one of the small own-brand pans left. I thought they might easily have none at all by the end of the afternoon. So if I wanted one, to make up a set of two (or three, including the wok when caravanning), then I'd best snap up that last remaining small pan now.

£50, though...

Once home, I was a bit more convinced that I'd done the right thing. With their wrapping torn off, my two new saucepans looked the business - ready to set boiling on the tân:

And what a good match with the older wok:

They'd be replacing this motley pair of pans, the small Naturepan from 2014, and a pan I inherited from Mum in 2009, which I was now using instead of the shabby larger Naturepan:

But there was a fatal snag with the smaller John Lewis pan I'd just bought. I hadn't understood that pans nowadays were designed primarily with flat induction hobs in mind. They would also be fine on many gas hobs, provided the metal supports underneath held them steady enough. That wasn't so on my gas hob in the kitchen. Nor on the gas hob in the caravan. Bugger. And I'd ripped the packaging to smithereens. I couldn't really take the small pan back as unsuitable - or at least I didn't have the nerve to.

The larger pan was fine. But I now had to think of what to do with the useless smaller pan. The happy outcome was that I offered it to next-door neighbour Jackie that evening. She and Jo and Clive had come over for a meal, with cards to follow. Jackie leapt at it, delighted:

So that's the promised Happy Ending. I like finding good new homes for my cast-offs. And Jackie got a brand-new unused cast-off. Naturally I had something for Jo, too. She got the heavy silver bracelet I bought a year ago, which had never felt quite comfortable on my wrist. But she loves bracelets, and it's always Bracelet City on both her wrists:

Poor Clive got nothing except my general hospitality. I hope he didn't mind. But really I own nothing he might covet, except possibly my Panasonic LX100 camera, and that is not going to be given away!

It was a jolly good fun evening. We shrieked our heads off after every triumph or disaster at cards. Well, Clive didn't: only girlies shriek. But we love making a noise.

And guess who trounced everyone at cards? The gods smile on those who give away new pans and hardly-worn bracelets.

And here's a thought to end on. I never pronounce 'saucepan' as SAWS-PAN. I say - and have always said - SOSS-PAN, like my Mum did. Now it's perfectly clear that I learned this at my mother's knee, or while asking her why her hands were so soft at washing-up time; and despite fifty-four years of living in England I've never lost that particular 'Welsh' pronunciation.

So how do you say it?

Strange fact
Do a Google search on 'Lwsi Melffordd'. I did it just now (12,40am on 16th February) and saw something I'd never seen before. A search result that turned up just one item - this post. Amazing.

Mark 5 strap

I know there are people out there who like hearing about my favourite orange Italian bag. Well, there's something new. A further development of the homemade cross-body strap I fitted in 2013.

When first bought in Florence in 2009, the bag had a short shoulder-strap. Let's call that Mark 1. Here it is in early 2013, just after I had decided to use the bag myself (it had been a rejected gift, that lay in my wardrobe, pristine in its cotton bag, for four long years):

I loved the bag, and was glad I had resurrected it, but I couldn't get on with that strap - it continually slid off my shoulder. So I decided to fit a homemade cross-body strap, made out of a man's leather belt, and using brass fittings cannibalised from an unwanted bag in my attic:

This Mark 2 strap made my bag practical. And the substitute brass bits that connected the strap to the bag worked well for several months. But brass wears fast, and late in 2013 one end of the strap came free, and that was that.

However, I'd kept the original short strap. Now I sacrificed it, in order to use its quite substantial brass fittings on my homemade cross-body belt. The strap leather had to be carefully cut away to accommodate the new brasswork - I used the original strap as a template:

The result seemed pretty good:

This improved Mark 3 strap now gave me excellent service for three years, lasting until the end of 2016. But once again the brass failed because of wear, and I had to find - urgently of course - another way of attaching the cross-body strap to the bag. This time I used brass rings, which I just happened to have in the house (see A bag strap solution, 5th December 2016):

It was a makeshift solution, but the Mark 4 strap looked OK, and certainly worked fine as a strong and secure way of attaching the cross-body strap.

There was, however, a minor issue. The strap, with its new chrome rings, was now shorter. The difference wasn't a serious matter, but nevertheless it bothered me. When I mentioned it the other day to my friend Jackie she suggested that I simply add two more rings, which would effectively lengthen the strap. I mulled this over, thinking that it might look odd; but yesterday I went out to buy those extra rings. And I have to say they seem to do the job:

So Jackie was right. The bag strap is now a more comfortable length, and fits better against my hips, whether worn on one shoulder (as above) or across the body. And the rings don't jangle as I walk along, which I thought they might do.

How long the Mark 5 strap will last is anybody's guess, but the chrome rings are substantial and easily-replaced.

Charity collections

Back to an old theme - charities. Grrr. One of modern life's banes. I wish they would all go away.

Yet another plastic envelope has been shoved through my front door - the fourth this week! - asking me to fill up a collection bag inside the envelope with 'good quality clothing and paired shoes, bedding, handbags, belts, soft toys, perfumes, and cosmetics' - I quote from the Leukemia Care envelope. Another one, from Marie Curie Nurses, is less particular and merely asks me for 'unwanted clothing, books, linens and bric-a-brac'.

Neither will get anything. I have nothing that I want to discard. Their envelopes have gone in the bin. As a stream of others before them have.

I'm highly annoyed to be plagued with these much-too-regular demands. It's on par with all the leaflets that come through one's front door, advertising services you don't want.

Presumably they make their approaches quite independently of each other, implying a wasteful division of effort - and unnecessary air pollution in the case of the later van collections.

And it's actually insulting, this assumption that most people are spendthrifts, materialistic air-heads, who rapidly build up a mountain of excess possessions - enough to fill large collection bags over and over and over again.

I certainly do spend money on clothes, but I can't afford to make many ill-judged purchases. So I don't find myself having to throw away a lot of unworn stuff, simply in order to create wardrobe space. There are - indeed there are - people around whose main hobby is spending cash on things they will never wear. And not just clothes. But I am not one of them, and I resent having the 'crass consumer' label fixed on me.

Plus, I dare say, earning a secret sneer from the people who organise these collections. Surely they must see their targets as sad people with a pathological spending problem. So there is an ethical issue here: shark-like collection firms preying on consumer addicts. That's wrong.

Perhaps national statistics 'prove' that Sussex residents in detached houses - with decent cars outside - are overwhelmingly likely to be good sources of posh clobber and other baubles.

And then there's the industrialised nature of the approach - dropping off a bag to fill, telling me when a driver will call to collect it, just as if this were a routine refuse collection. It's a million miles away from my own concept of spontaneous personal charity, giving something to alleviate a pressing need right there in front of my face.

I know; the charities will say that no amount of haphazard impulsive responses by individuals - who just happen to be there at the right time, and who just happen to feel momentarily altruistic - can ever accomplish nearly as much as an organised, continuous effort to raise funds by a body dedicated to the task, and willing to apply all the techniques of persuasion.

So far as effectiveness goes, they are surely right. I suppose my irritations highlight the main problem for people raising cash for good causes - human nature. You have to bombard the better-off for alms, otherwise they will just walk on by. You can't rely on the odd generous impulse.

Mobile phone charges - shock horror!

I just happened to be checking my current mobile phone usage this morning, and the charges accruing towards my next bill, and discovered that it will be nearly double the normal £17. Shock horror!

Why?

Vodafone's smartphone app simply told me the headline bad news: out-of-bundle charges of £7.98 for calls and £4.55 for texts. But when? And who to?

I mean, my SIM-only deal with Vodafone allows me 500 minutes per month of UK calls, which is normally far, far more than I need. In the main, it's unusual for me to make a voice call at all. I never ring people up just for a chat. Though thinking about it, I could recall one recent exception to that - an hour speaking to Jayne in North Devon about important personal matters affecting herself. But Devon is in the UK...

As for texting, my deal gives me unlimited UK texts. I should never have to pay extra.

Gosh, had my phone been taken over by someone? Or had Vodafone somehow messed up, and charged me for someone's else's mobile phone usage? How could that be unraveled and put right?

Well, I went online, and logged into their full website, seeking explanations. Usage...there were the same figures...let's get a proper breakdown...Oh, I see...

Silly me, I'd forgotten a call made to local friend Jo on 26th January, while she was briefly in hospital.

I had been going to text her on her own phone, to find out how she was. But I got a text from the hospital saying that, as part of their service to patients, Jo had been given a special mobile phone to use, so that she could keep in touch with friends and family. They gave me the number. It sounded like a free service for Jo to use as she wished. How nice of them, I thought.

So instead of texting, I gave her a ring. I simply wanted to ask her if it would be all right to pop in that afternoon and see her. It wasn't a long conversation. There was no need for one - we could chat at length later on, face-to-face. In fact I brought Jackie and Valerie with me, and Sue turned up independently soon afterwards, so that there was quite a crowd in her room.

I forgot all about that single short call to that hospital mobile number. But, given the date and time, I now identified it as the one that Vodafone were going to charge me £7.98 for. The call had lasted 870 seconds - fourteen and a half minutes - longer than I remembered, but still not very long. The number was a UK one, 07003 362044. An '07' number was usually a no-charge number. There had been no warning that it might be otherwise.

In hindsight, I should have been suspicious. All 'services' come at a price. If it was free for Jo, then somebody else would have to pay. I could easily have looked the number up on the Internet, and if I'd done so I would had seen this web page: http://www.area-codes.org.uk/07003-numbers.php. It was a 'personal numbering service' number belonging to Hospedia, a big outfit who provide bedside media and communication services to NHS patients across the country. They are notorious for their 'rip-off' charges, but I was unaware of that.

So I'd been caught. Jo may have had free calls and free TV, but her friends and family would pay through the nose to communicate with her.

I think this is disgusting. Especially as no warning is given. I won't be fooled a second time, I can tell you.

As for the texts, which Vodafone were charging me £4.55 for, there were thirteen of them, all on 22nd January. I had sent twelve of them between 9.29am and 9.56am, and then one more at 9.15pm.

Recall was easier on this. Especially when I checked the phone number, which began with '64'. They'd all gone to New Zealand, to my step-daughter Adrienne. We'd been exchanging New Year emails, but then Adrienne had launched into a chat-by-text session, bombarding me with sections of text every few minutes. This was something I was not used to. Each long text had been broken up into shorter sections that arrived at brief intervals, one after another. I made the error of responding to every section as it arrived. I should have waited a bit, then replied with a single text, not multiple ones. Little did I think that I'd be charged 35p for every response. For these were not of course to a UK number.

I think we'll stick to emailing in the future!

These episodes just go to show how you need your wits about you. My thoughtlessness has cost me a hefty £12.57.

At least I did establish that it was all my own fault, and that Vodafone hadn't made some ghastly mistake that would have destroyed my faith in their billing. Small comfort, though.

The National Trust tells me that I will die at age 74

The National Trust has given me notice that I will die on 31 January 2027.

That's quite surprising. But I'm thinking that they may have devised a Ten-year Programme to streamline the membership - winkling out those long-term members who haven't been making donations, such as myself. I dare say that their accountants have recommended a cull.

I'd better make some plans then, and get my affairs in even better order than they are now. Start a countdown. Tick off the days remaining. Try to do some important things before it's too late. Because just under ten years from now, their Mutant Ninja Death Squad will come a-knocking, and that will be the end of me! The NT will naturally want confirmation that I really am deceased, so that they can delete my name from some worklist. So the Death Squad will pursue me relentlessly until they corner me in a corner of a field that is Forever England, and then Make Sure. It's no good thinking of flight. Or hiding. They'll find me, and then my number will be up.

There's no mistake about this. Let me explain.

I'm a Life Member. I have been since 1996, although my connection with the Trust goes back even further to 1981. Well, I got a new plastic card in 2010, to replace the original. Here it is, minus the bottom section for my signature - naturally, you don't want to see that. The card has a tasteful mud-brown and slime-green colour scheme, which I don't mind. I can't understand why NT staff find it So Very Wrong And Confusing. By the way, the green bar is not a magnetic strip. It does nothing.

Even though it's only seven years old, that 2010 card is archaic and won't work with the NT's modern property-admission technology. This causes havoc at NT properties. Klaxons blare and sirens wail. The staff go into a state of collapse, look at me askance, and I dare say consider calling the police.

Capping even that, the new card-scanning machines being installed in the NT's country car parks from this spring won't recognise my 2010 card, and they will explode. Nasty.

I realised it was time to ask for a newer card. I did. It arrived yesterday. It looks like this:

Don't waste time on the bar-code. Apparently there's no personal information in it, although there might just be an explanation for the asterisk next to my name. What could it mean? 'She has never made a donation - give her a hard time' perhaps? But then the card also says that I'm inspiring, and that my whole life is an adventure. Maybe they have been reading this blog? Who knows. Nothing is clear. It's all fog on fog. In fact the card itself is fog-coloured.

The thing that really concerns me is the 'Exp: 31 January 27' under my name. The card is meant to be valid until I die. So if it ceases to be valid on 31st January 2027, they are predicting my departure from this world on that date. Hence my newly-perceived vulnerability to the NT's Mutant Ninja Death Squad.

The sensible part of me has said, 'Don't panic! There must be some silly clerical error. Ring them up and enquire!'

So I have. I spoke to a youngish-sounding man. I told him that my new Life Membership card had a termination date emblazoned on it, and I was not even 65 yet. I was too young to die so soon.

I think he saw what I was getting at, but you never know with today's young people. He asked me to hold, anyway, while he conferred with another colleague. After a minute or so he came back, and he told me that my new card shouldn't have had an expiry date on it. That was indeed an error. In fact the card was temporary, and I would be sent a proper card before the end of the year.

I see... All right, then.

Well, they fobbed me off, didn't they? I'll believe in that permanent, no termination-date card when I see it.

Till then I'd best regard myself as under sentence of death. There is at least one cheerful thing, one heart-warming nugget. I've visited so many NT properties since becoming a life member in 1996 that I must already have recouped the original cost of it at least once, and maybe twice. I'm deep into net profit. That's surely why they have put me on a hit list. The 'error' was letting me know about it.

No doubt some unfortunate guilty minion has been cast into a dungeon. One of the NT's castles, no doubt. My guess would be Bodiam Castle.

Pearly white

There's a cluster of reasons why older women tend to have shorter hair, among them the sheer convenience of having hair that isn't a nuisance for daily tasks - mundane, caring and creative - that need to be done. Long hair, like fancy painted fingernails, gets in the way of practical effort.

But there's more to it than that. Short hair can be low-maintenance and therefore welcome: it doesn't matter nearly so much if it gets ruffled or windblown. Indeed, a spiky, gelled look can lend an urban trendiness to hair deliberately cut short. That might be important, if professional standing and credibility depends on appearance.

Very short hair is in any case the trademark of a woman who wants to be different - most notably a feminist, who may need to signal her point of view. Short hair, untidy or styled, is giving the finger to the conventional pretty norms required by the patriarchy. And it works whatever the age of the woman concerned.

This does not exhaust the possible reasons for preferring shorter hair. For instance, a wish for dignity - long hair flopping over the face, or whipping in the wind, can make anyone look ridiculous. There may be an obvious job requirement, to do with safety. Or the hair itself may be weak or sparse, and not be up the task of supporting a long hair style.

My own hair isn't especially weak or sparse, but it grows unevenly, being thicker on my left-hand side. That might be fine for an unsymmetrical hair style. But I favour symmetry, with a fringe, and I can have this only if I limit the length of my hair to just off my shoulders, and no longer. This is a cause for mild grief, but my stylist Morgan has persuaded me that there is nothing else to be done, if using my natural hair alone. For a long time, I wouldn't have that; but I now see what she means. Shorter hair gives the illusion of thicker hair on the problematic right side of my head. And she has the skill to make the most of it.

So although I envy women of my acquaintance - indeed women everywhere - who have long, thick hair in cascades, I do see the necessity to adopt a style that makes the best of what nature has endowed me with. It is a consolation that close women friends, whose opinion I trust, have universally said that shorter hair suits me.

But there's also the colour of the hair to consider.

I don't colour my hair, and never have done. I saw how Mum - over the decades - damaged her hair, and made it thin out, with her home perms every few days. In fairness, old age would have made her hair thinner anyway. But it was always my opinion, based on general observation and not just of Mum, that chemicals and fine-textured hair did not mix. Like Mum's, my hair is notably fine-textured. So, down the years, I have been consistently resistant to any chemical processes suggested to me by friends or stylists. That has preserved my hair from any coloration. And I don't think it has been to my detriment, either. Letting nature colour my hair has always seemed the best thing. I stand by that even now.

And what has nature done? As a child I was golden-haired. In young adulthood, fair or light brown. In my forties, there was the first suggestion of grey - salt-and-pepper really - which rapidly intensified from my early fifties. And then, once I went onto HRT eight years ago, this grey look developed into a lighter, paler shade that changed in accordance with the light source. I thought 'ash blonde' or 'platinum blonde' were the best descriptions. The actual colour of individual hairs varied from grey to honey to white, with the odd darker hair still in there.

While at the salon two days ago, I asked Morgan what colour she would say my hair was. 'I'd say pearly white,' she replied. She added that it was a very nice natural colour indeed, that I was lucky to have.

Hmm. 'Pearly white'. It sounded like a shade from a colour chart.

But white?

I saw what she meant. In good, neutral light my hair was definitely a very light shade. I'd never have said 'white' myself, because I associated white hair with really old people in their eighties. But I had to admit it now that it was a kind of white. But redeemed by being 'pearly' - which implied a hue that would make my hair interesting and attractive, and not simply hair drained of all colour by old age.

It was hard not to feel freaky though. Anyone looks strange if they have a young face but white hair. I hasten to say that I don't have a young face - but it's not old and wizened. My naturally 'pearly white' hair must therefore seem unusual. And possibly contrived - making other women wonder (a) what hair-colour product I've been using, and (b) whether I am making a statement by having my hair like this, and if so, what it is. Whereas there is no product, and no statement.

Until now, I've been mostly concerned with the length and style of my hair, and not its colour. Now I'm thinking more seriously about that too.

Is it too white? Do I really want people's attention? Is that why I sometimes catch people looking at me? Should I care?

Women experiment with hair colour as a matter of course, even if it's just highlights to add distinction to something ordinary. A great many women adopt an all-over colour quite different from whatever nature has given them. It's a form of personal expression. Blonde hair must still be the most popular shade. But deep red has always been a close second, and nowadays blue and green and purple, with perhaps yellow or orange highlights, are nothing extraordinary, not among young women anyway. Any more than tattoos are. The effect isn't always happy; but hey, if it's done well and individually satisfying, then who needs to judge or comment? And in that spirit, I hope nobody is going to purse their lips at my own pearly-white hair.