I went into Colchester this morning. Six weeks seem to have rushed by in a flash, and I needed a haircut. Strictly speaking I could have done with one about ten days ago, but once every six weeks is as much as I run to. My hairdresser knows this, and does her best to cut my hair accordingly so that it just about lasts that long without looking completely like a giant pom pom for the final week. She is also very organised about booking my next appointment for six weeks hence, so that I don't let it slip out to seven or eight.
Booking miles ahead (by my standards) I get the choice of times, and generally go for the 9.45am slot to let the traffic die down before driving in. Colchester's traffic is extremely hit and miss, but if you avoid the rush hour it's normally fine by then, and today I sailed round the inner ring road and was parked in the multi storey within twenty five minutes of leaving the house. There were so many empty spaces on the upper deck that I could drive through to my preferred, outward facing without reversing, central space without a wing mirror eating pillar on either side. There weren't even any other cars on either side of me (otherwise one of them would have bagged the central slot. People always do).
And that is one of the problems with the new park and ride scheme. The councils, borough and county, have made much of how the town is being choked by cars, but if you are sensible about what time you go in it normally isn't. The parking bit of the park and ride is up on the A12, near the football stadium, and I reckon it would take me as long to drive there as it does to get into Colchester. Add in the time spent waiting for a bus, and length of the bus journey, and there is no reason for anybody living in the villages east of the town to use the park and ride.
Unlike Cambridge, which has a park and ride terminal on every one of the main roads leading into Cambridge, Colchester just has the one, which cuts down the scheme's catchment area considerably. Nobody from the Tendring peninsular is going to flog up the A120 and along the A12 to reach it. People living to the south of Colchester, on Mersea Island and the villages from Rowhedge across to the Tolleshunts, aren't going to drive half way around Colchester so that they can enter the town from the opposite direction. Those living to the north ought to be natural supporters, except that the B1508 from West Bergholt doesn't connect with the A12, but sails right over it on its jaunty blue bridge, and before you know it you're already at the north station roundabout. The park and ride is handy for those out to the west, but they could also go shopping at Stanway, or get the train from Mark's Tey up to Westfield at Stratford.
This could be one reason* why in the scheme's first seven weeks of operation, an average of 240 people per day used the park and ride, translating to five per bus. The last park and ride bus I saw had two people in it, at six in the evening, and the Systems Administrator saw one with just a single passenger. The council's spokesman said that new schemes always took time to build momentum, but I can't see that anything short of pushing the cost of parking up to Cambridge levels would make me take the park and ride. In fact, I wouldn't even then, for the most part, but with great regret find myself another hairdresser not in central Colchester.
Which I would be sorry about, since I like my hairdresser and she has an absolute talent for cutting my hair. Thick, curly and unruly, it has struck fear (if not actual loathing) into the hearts of lesser stylists, who have on occasion made absolute dogs' breakfasts of cutting it. Today's session came with a bonus tutorial on the technique of thinning. It was done for the trainee's benefit, but when I said this sounded really interesting and it was a shame I couldn't see, my hairdresser invited me to put my glasses back on since she didn't need to trim any more round my ears. The point of thinning with thick hair and a short cut is apparently to remove volume so that the hair will go on lying the way it is supposed to as the cut grows out, rather than forming clumps. As she pointed to different areas of my scalp in turn, explaining to the junior how the different texture and direction of growth in various bits of it dictated where the hair needed thinning, I thought that this was uncanny. She had pinpointed exactly the spots where, three or four weeks after a haircut, I have suddenly seen great lumps sticking horizontally out of my head.
Many stylists, my hairdresser said, getting into her theme, did not thin enough, especially with short crops. It can be done with either normal scissors, using the tips, or serrated scissors. You had to be careful with the latter not to leave lines. Control of the scissors was everything, she stressed, repeatedly letting them dangle from her thumb and twirling them back on to her finger like a gun slinger in a western. The trainee had got to practice her scissors control. After the young girl had left us my hairdresser told me with some pride that the junior had natural talent. She had picked up a graduated bob (whatever that is) solely by watching the experienced stylists. She was already a good colorist, and would be finishing her college course in a few weeks' time. Even then, though, it would be a couple of years before she was let loose cutting customers' hair, my hairdresser concluded severely. The college did not teach them nearly enough.
*Other reasons include the fact that the park and ride does not call at Colchester General Hospital, despite the fact that parking there really is dire. Essex County Council say they are not responsible for providing transport for NHS employees. Hands up who feels even vaguely optimistic that we are going to help solve the problems of the NHS by successfully integrating it with social care.
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