Following the hair trail

I've got an appointment to see my hairdresser in a couple of weeks. He's a very popular guy - bookings three weeks in advance! Not exactly cheap, but I'm willing to pay the price since it's been TWO YEARS since I've paid him a visit. People have been commenting a lot lately about the length of my hair. It easily reaches to my bottom and I can wrap it around my neck like a scarf!

A bit hard to find recent photos that fully display its length. Here's one from Christmas.

Me and my Ma, Xmas 2009
So then I got curious. Trying to remember my different hair lengths over the years. Started going through old photos, pre-children...

So now I present to you some embarrassing pictures of Jen through the late '90s. Most of the pictures were taken at parties. Lots of (too much) alcohol was consumed at this time. Not many pictures to choose from (our first digital camera was a 1.2 megapixel beast which cost >$1,000! and our biggest memory card was a whopping 16Mb!) and I was pretty good at hiding from the camera. I apologise in advance.

1995 - Third year at Uni. Working at the computer lab at Uni - obviously working, if you look at the computer screen. Hair mid-long length, played with a bit of bleach. A year or two before, that bleached bit was dark blue.

1995-ish

1997-98 - or thereabouts. This was taken at a friend's 21st. Dan and I were together by then. My hair was long, long, long. Nearly as long as now. Again with the bleach and the blue.

1997-98

June 1999 - Turned 24. Got rid of the blonde bits (dyed my hair black - ha!) but still hadn't lost the bleach bug. I bleached a nice straight line across the bottom of my hair and dyed it red. Started working at my current job not long after this. They still talk about my hair sometimes! Finally found a picture.

June, 1999

Nov, 1999 - For some insane reason I decided to get my hair cut short. I guess I needed a change. I did sell it to a wig maker for $20/ounce. I got $140 for it. More than paid for the haircut. Here's the bleach again. I just couldn't let up, could I? I'd forgotten how much I coloured my hair. It wasn't that often but bleach is permanent! This pic is me at a '70s party. Hence the dress.

Nov, 1999

May, 2000 - The last big cut. Dan and I were about to head off to Egypt so I cut my hair short. Boy-short! It was nice enough on the first day, possibly the first week but afterwards, so terrible! I'll never do that again! Especially at a cheap hairdresser! This was our combined birthday/going away party. My hair is blue, but it was hairspray. It was a costume party. Monsters.

May, 2000

That concludes our trip down memory lane. Thanks for laughing as I cringed my way through that! I don't think I'll be doing anything too drastic in a fortnight's time. Winter's coming (apparently... didn't feel like it today) so I might want to keep my hair-scarf!

He would have been 46 today

My eldest brother Arthur, and a young me. My next two older brothers are behind.

The Sentimental Chick

Towards the end of last year, our elderly neighbour, Uncle Ted (pictured above at Christmas 2007 - the last Christmas he spent with us), passed away at the ripe old age of 93. He'd lived alone for 21 years and spent the last ten months of his life in a nursing home. He lived three houses down from us and was like a grandfather to us kids. He and his wife (whom we always called "Mrs Bock" for some reason, never "Auntie Winnie") were of great help to my mother when she was bringing up five kids with her parents far away in the Torres Strait. (Mrs Bock died in 1986. They never had any children.) Uncle Ted always came over to our place for Christmas, Chinese New Year and any other big celebration we'd have.

I didn't mention it at the time because it was just too sad. Too many deaths occurred at that time, too many funerals. It was hard.

Uncle Ted's house went up for sale today.


I went along to say my final farewell to him and Mrs Bock and their house. Just thinking about it in the morning made me a little sad.

But when I walked into that house for the last time, I took one look and burst into tears. I couldn't believe it. A whole bunch of memories came flooding back. I haven't really been inside for years. Everything was still the same. The same furniture, the same carpet, the same smell of Sunlight soap.


The other people inspecting the house must have thought I was completely loony. They gave me the strangest looks. The real estate agents gave me a wide berth. I didn't care. I was remembering visiting Mrs Bock with Mama after school and on weekends. I remembered the bars of soap they used to fashion from the tiny leftover bits of soap. I remembered the old transistor radio they used to listen to. The stairs at the back of the house. I remembered playing in the back yard and the rows of beans and veges growing on trestles, sadly now all gone.

That's me, the baby.
I hope the new owners will be happy in that old house. I hope they treat it well and fill it with new life. And I really hope they don't knock it down.

Me and my bro

Time for a flashback.


My eldest brother, Arthur, and me. I think I was about a year or so old. He was 12 years older than me.

This was taken out the front of our house. The funny thing is that it still looks basically the same. Even that succulent on the left of my brother is still there and alive.

From the archives

My mother found a bag of loose photos the other day, recovered from my paternal grandmother's place after she died. Mostly pictures of my brothers when they were kids but more recent ones as well. This is one of me and my two second-cousins born the same year (April, May and June). We're standing outside the family home, where we live now. It must be Chinese New Year since that was usually the occasions that we got together, plus it's summer. I'm guessing that we were about 4 or 5 years old.

That's me on the right. I love the pose and look on my face. I seem to be saying "Have you finished, yet?". I'm amazed that I'm so much smaller than the other two girls (there's only a couple of inches height difference between us now).

I love looking at old photos. I'll post some more soon!