Somerset Hairdressers - Listening Skills and Emotional Empathy

As I drove into Wells recently, I listened to BBC Radio 4. An item came on, an interview with a spokesperson for the Hairdressers Representative Association, or similar.

The gist of the interview was that hairdressers play a huge role in their customers' emotional lives, with empathic listening skills, and understanding of their problems.

As this continued, I mentally worked through some local haircutting experiences.......

Let's see. There was the the one-off in Burnham-on-Sea, when visiting family years ago. By the time I'd left the town centre, there was the odd sticky-uppy bit.  Within half an hour my hair was sticking up, out, all over the place.

Then there was another one-off in Weston super Mare. The woman who ran the place had recently parted  from her partner. Acrimoniously. Meanwhile, she took out her angers on my head. Here a cuff, there a cuff. I don't think my head was stationary for more than a couple of seconds throughout.

A neighbour of mine went into Cheddar for a haircut. Paid up, came home.
Paused to admire himself in the hallway mirror, as you do.
They hadn't actually finished the job. Half cut. Just stopped half way through.

The hairdressers in Wells I've used on several occasions ; they do a good haircut. Empathic listening ? Endless chatter between the two people who run it.

And of course, there is the well-known barber near the bus station in Wells. Also does a good haircut. I think that the whole experience can be described thus : the waiting customers are the audience while L, the proprietor, cuts hair, and holds forth with his trenchant views on this, that, and his ex-wife. The account that I particularly recall described the problems that L had had with someone who repeatedly parked their car directly outside his house. The space that L regarded as his own.

The story ends, as L pauses from cutting, and turns wide-eyed towards the punters.... ,

"Is it my fault that an Alsation shit all over his door handle.....?".

( The Best ) Halloween Song

The Dog Walkers - Axbridge Reservoir

Half of World's Wealth in Hands of 1% of Population – Report

http://www.theguardian.com/money/2015/oct/13/half-world-wealth-in-hands-population-inequality-report?CMP=share_btn_fb

Proud to see our little country punching above its weight again, and good to know that a few hundred patriotic individuals could solve the deficit at a stroke. If called upon, that is.

Warm Home Discount - £140 Energy Costs Rebate

I'd never heard of this.....

Warm Home Discount

and neither had several of my neighbours. All older, and one in rather poor health.

Perhaps you know of some older people, or people on a very low income, who could find this useful.

More detail here....

.GOV Site 


Here is how the discount looks for someone who uses an electric pre-payment key meter.

Film - The Station Master - Shot at Stogumber Station on the West Somerset Railway

Award winning short film. 

A lonely Station Master at a remote, rural outpost encounters a woman stranded overnight at his station, and after some hesitation, invites her to spend the night in the warmth of his humble home. This unexpected encounter reawakens the Station Master’s enthusiasm for life as the two talk long into the night, but in the morning, when her train arrives, will she leave along with his heart? 


The Station Master



The locomotive is from the former Somerset and Dorset Railway. If you do any of your shopping at Sainsbury in Bridgwater, your feet are on the site of the S & D Bridgwater North station.

Morning Thought

As I made breakfast this morning, I thought.

" The sun is always shining somewhere..."