BEARDY WEIRDY

My neighbour spotted me sorting out the bins last week and said to me "I see that you're sporting a beard…" and, now I come to think about it, I suppose that I was.

This, of course, is the closest thing to anything "sporty" that I'm likely to get at my great age, and was sprouted more out of laziness and a slight tendency towards skin irritation than planning, although the Beloved might suggest that it is symptomatic of me failing to look after myself properly as the latest depression slash fatigue cycle goes about working its dark magic.

Still, despite my intrigue as to quite how this thing might have ultimately manifested itself, because I'd never really gone quite this verdant before, I knew that it would have to go fairly soon, even though it had already passed the fiendishly itchy stage, because no immigration official is going to let me into their country if I resemble my brand new passport photograph so very, very vaguely, I fear.

Also, the Beloved's mother had already been making, er, barbed comments about my recent aversion to the razor, which probably sealed its fate, even though I was not exactly quite clear at that moment as to how to dispose of it without clogging the sink and by using merely an ageing Mach Three blade and a pair of scissors.

Still, even though it was temporary, I think that's it has been an interesting new look for me over the past couple of weeks and sometimes has even made the vainest flicker of "lookin'good today" flit across my mind before the full horror of remembering my potato-like countenance had resurfaced, not least due to the fact that my several chins could be slightly disguised by this hirsute coating.

What finally led it to its doom though was my last visit to the hairdressers during which much comment was made as to how "trendy" I was looking.

Naturally, this is simply not true.

By the time I'm boarding the "trendy bus" the trend itself must have already gone so far out of style that it might be well on its way to coming back again, but I can't have anyone suggesting that anything I do at all could be regarded as "trendy" and so, after a trip to the supermarket and a failed attempt to write anything meaningful on a Sunday afternoon, I disappeared into the bathroom with a freshly recharged "Beard Trimmer" which I bought somewhere at the dawn of time during my misguided "hippy" phase, and set about the crop.

Naturally, the "Beard Trimmer" was so very old that it no longer seemed capable of doing any actual trimming, so it was time to set about my several jawlines with the scissors before wielding the razor and filling the bowl, the floor and the medicine cabinet with hundreds of tiny, tiny bits of hair.

Mere minutes later and my chins were smooth and hairless again and my new look was nothing but a vague memory as my old look, bearing a more familiar and disappointing visage was staring back at me from the mirror.

Of course, the thing about beard age is that it never really stops. Already by Monday morning the scratchy stubble of its next manifestation was beginning to reveal itself as I rubbed my hand across my face whilst the latest disaster ensued, leading me to think that I really, really need to get myself into a far more regular morning routine to deal with this body horror nonsense.

And you, those of you that are lucky enough to be hairless of chin… You really don't know how we suffer…