I've been getting lots of compliments on me new haircut today. Everyone is really impressed - especially when I explain how cheap it was: free. In fact.. the only person who hasn't seemed too impressed with it was the hairdresser's mother: Rat's mum.

You see, on Friday Rat bought some clippers or whatever they are called to give himself a much needed haircut. It's probably been a good four years since he's been to a hairdresser, and only hacking at it himself has kept it from being incredibly long. He finally decided he needed to do something a little more drastic.

So after helping him with the back of his head I decided that he should cut mine. It needed cutting desperately. So standing in the bath with sopping wet hair (not the best way to cut it, I know, but I'd just had a bath and couldn't be bothered to towel dry it properly) he started cutting away. Firstly he took about an inch off, and then cut off more so it is short enough to not annoy me and only just long enough to put in a tiny ponytail. With only one mirror of even slightly decent size in the house I couldn't really check the back but I didn't really care. I'm not particularly vain and as long as my hair doesn't annoy me and doesn't look too odd, then it's fine.

So we were in Rat's mum's car on Saturday as she was about to drive us to the bus stop. After discussing Rat's hair he turned round and asked what she thought of mine because he cut it (or something along those lines). "No you didn't, it's too nice" were her response. After telling her about three times that he had cut it she finally accepted that and then asked me "is it straight?" Of course, if it really is too nice then she wouldn't have needed to ask whether it was straight or not - so she can't have really paid any attention. On the other hand, if it weren't straight she would have soon commented.

But other than that, as I've said, everyone is really impressed. I've been joking that he should become a hairdresser (half seriously). People have said that he should come and do their's. It's gone down rather well. And what a saving!

I don't think Rat's colleagues are taking his haircut in quite the same way. One apparently said it made him look tough or something. But his boss has made the inevitable jibes. Not all that surprising since they've never ever seen it long. It must look rather odd to them.