h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

"Nice to see you letting your hair down".

Last night I may well have been out, and yes, I drank all of 2 bottles of normal strength beer, plus half a pint of cider. Big deal, that's not much when drank in 5 hours; if I were really letting my hair down and wasn't on call, I'd have drunk more heavily and more quickly instead of being careful to stay just sober enough.

All the time I was out, I was still on call. The mobile phone was on vibrate, tucked into my clothing, and if it had gone off, I would have replied gone home immediately. The venue was all of 15 minutes on a main bus route from home, which is how come I could take the risk of leaving my caree alone for so long.

Some of us don't have much hair to let down.

Long hair is, believe it or not, very low maintenance.

I bet Rapunzel suffered a lot from split ends, though.

And I bet you suffer from a sunburnt scalp

I was exaggerating. I have enough hair on top to ward off the sunburn. My hairline is just a bit higher than it used to be.

My own hair never grew more than shoulder length.

Hairline hasn't been receding, but it is changing color, increasing)y grey on top, white almost everywhere else.

Umptyfirst thing to not say: "Oh well if you're only going to be resting tomorrow (instead of handing out leaflets for half the day, but as well as preparing for soemthing pretty big on Monday)". Which part of "I'm a carer" had you ing well forgotten you selfcentred insensitive thoughtless ? The only time I rest in the way you imagine is when I'm too ing ill to be up without being a danger to either myself or to somebody else (eg falling against things, misjudging distances when pouring water from a hot kettle, misjudging where the knife is in relation to my hands etc). Now if you've quite finished moaning about your incipient flu, perhaps you'll let me get back to my chores, plus the stuff for Monday, plus running round after somebody whose M.E. is relapsing badly.

I can't tell how you feel. Could you say that again?