I have a lot of hair. Not just length, but thickness – the number of hair follicles on my head must be on the very high end of normal. Now I know that this is a good thing, especially as I age, but sometimes it comes with challenges.

Once upon a time, my hair was pretty straight. Through much of my youth, I wore a typical young girl long hairstyle and it had just a gentle wave in the back. There were a couple of disasterous short hair cuts, but even through young adulthood and motherhood, I have preferred it to at least touch my shoulders. As the Mum to three within 41 months, it was easy to throw it up in a ponytail and be done with it – and let’s face it, there certainly wasn’t time for more.

When I went back to the workplace, I got more of a hair “style” and that meant blow-drying after every wash. Suddenly it also meant dying it to keep the pesky greys away. I did both for the better part of two decades. When I finally decided to ditch the dye, I was only a few months ahead of the rest of the world. Expecting a sabbatical to start in March 2020 (we all know how that went!), I coloured my hair for the last time on Christmas Eve the year before and used a spray to cover the greys that appeared until we started working from home.

It was about then that I stopped using the blow dryer all the time and discovered, to my horror that my hair texture had completely changed. My almost straight hair had disappeared and in its place was this very wavy, almost curly hair. Hair that I had no idea what to do with.

Every time I passed a mirror I had to take a second look. It did not look like me at all. Now before you tell me it was just the grey hair I’d been covering making itself known, I have to disagree. Much of my grey hair is actually sparkly silver and quite soft. It’s some of the straightest hair I have. The rest of it looks like I’ve stuck my finger in a light socket!

Strait thick hair I can deal with. Straight crazy hair, not so much. So for the last few years of my paid career, I continued to blow dry. Nowadays, while I like to blow dry in the winter (reference thick hair that takes forever to air dry), in the summer, it’s nice to let it be – and it doesn’t hurt that the Ginger in my life likes it that way! But I’m still learning. Let me know in the comments how you tame crazy hair – I need all the tips I can get.

One last thought: I remember once reading that a man should be able to track his likeliness of balding by looking at his mother’s father. If that is, in fact, true, my boys should be just fine!