Tiny Flirt starts school on Tuesday. He will be in pre-prep? at Little Madam’s school, and he is so excited it’s wonderful. We took photos of them both in their uniforms this afternoon, and while Little Madam looked every inch the sophisticated little ingenue, Tiny Flirt was so proud and happy that even the photos turned out larger than we expected.

(Little Nutter was hiding in a corner of the garden,? tearing his Scooby-Doo shorts into threads and laughing at the Thomas the Tank Engine train crash he had created on the patio – so everyone was happy.)

But the heartbreak came before then; uniform standards are very strict at? Little Madam & Tiny Flirt’s school, and haircuts are definitely on the uniform list. His gorgeous ginger curls had to go.

So the flirt and I visited a barber’s shop underneath York’s Bootham Bar. An enormous pile of dark brown curls appeared? on the floor around? my chair – and, among them, the most beautiful golden-red curls landed like confetti thrown by demigods.

And? I endured a lopsided haircut because the lady cutting my hair could not tear her eyes from my son! Tiny Flirt sat pulling faces at himself in the mirror, apparently disinterested? in his? utter monopolisation of? the attention of every single human being in the building as his gorgeous curls were cut and cast down to the floor; passers-by were in tears at the obscene profanity of such an act. The proprietor of the shop could hardly bring himself to cut the Flirt’s gorgeous locks, only finding the strength to butcher his mantle? when a little voice called out, “I’d like a haircut please, thankyou” (simultaneously deaf-signed!)

There wasn’t a dry eye in the building as Tiny Flirt’s gorgeous mane was savaged; and he emerged from the barber’s shop looking older and considerably more sophisticated. That’s another milestone.

I was just asked about how I wanted my bald patch to be covered.