It’s a little hysterical to me that sometimes changes happen that seem entirely unrelated, but end up making sense together. This is despite having taken place perhaps months apart. Today I shall present my case.

Let’s start with hair. (Yes, hair.)

For a long while – in fact, since after my wedding – I’ve kept my hair heavily layered. You would do this too if you spent nearly a year growing your hair long and very lightly layered so that you can have pretty bridal hair for your wedding. You would do this too when you get to the point where your hair not only gets caught in your bag straps and your clothes, but also gets rolled onto by your unknowing husband while you’re both sleeping.

So the first time I met my lovely hairdresser, Leanna, over four years ago, I told her to whack off about 8 inches of hair. And since then we have kept my layers in check, kept them neat and kept my hair from… well, looming large.

Then, earlier this year, I decided I wanted colour in my hair again. This is a tricky business, because I have very dark hair. It’s black, but not blue-black, but brown-black. There is even some copper in there. So with Ruth‘s help – and she knows all about hair, I can tell you – I chose a fantastic salon in Soho, and I picked out a colour I didn’t expect.

It’s called Mahogany Violet.

This was taken back in late April, in the bright sunshine, pretty much the day after I got the colour done. And I love it. In the right light there are shots of brilliant violet-pink, and it gives the rest of my hair a lovely warm cast that reminds me of deep soft wood. As it fades the violet dims but the mahogany cast gets more intense. And I love it.

But you’ll note the layers are all still there. I then also decided that I was tired of the layers, because the lack of weight made my hair frame my face too openly, and somehow I felt that made me look older. I wanted some weight and bounce back. So over four years after she cut layers into my hair, poor Leanna was glad she was sitting down when I told her that I didn’t want the layers anymore; I wanted all my hair back.

Eight months later, this is the Mahogany Violet beast that is my hair.

The colour has now blended itself in and works on a much more wonderful, subtle level, and there is a lot of hair. A lot of big fat weight that to me has framed my face a little smaller, and therefore taking a few years off me. In Nick’s words, it’s added some cute back. Which is nice of him.

But the trouble with this new hair is that, well, it’s heavy. It flops and bounces and falls and has absolutely no discipline. It’s impish, which suits me, but it’s a pain when you’re writing notes, or studying, or trying to eat. I still love it though.

Now, to continue my case, we’ll talk about the gardening. (Don’t worry, we’ll arrive at the point in a minute.)

I now have to wear layers – this time, on my person, not my hair – a lot. Because we swap from being indoors to outdoors a lot of the time at college and my volunteer work, it’s necessary to be prepared for most conditions, especially now that it is so cold. Since September I have been steadily adding layers until now half my coats and jackets live in my car.

Then I discovered flannel shirts. Like the one I’m wearing above.

These are warm, tough, fit me nicely, and do typical shirt things like have sleeves that roll up as needed and buttons that you can undo when you get a little too warm. They’re a good adjustable layering system to wear on top of my standard issue t-shirts and under my jumper or soft shell. I expect to now be living in them at least six months of the year; that’s how perfect they are for the indoor-outdoor garden-type things I’ll be doing a lot of the time now.

Especially since – and here is my point, silly though it may be – these flannel shirts have pockets.

Where I can stick a couple of bobby pins.

Which I can’t lose and can quickly access.

To pin up and back the heavy layers of my new hair.

Et voilà, no?