I'll have to do it, and do it soon, because the time is fast approaching when I can put it off no more.

After all, we women are meant to love all the pampering, the relaxation, the exchange of secrets and gossip... in short, the pure and unalloyed joy of a trip to the hairdressers.

Now, I realise that this may shock you, but I have to confess I do not love hairdressers. Then again, I am not exactly high maintenance.

Only now, at the advanced age of 44, have I realised that there IS a shampoo to combat frizzy hair. Frizz-Ease, it's called.

It's also taken me until quite recently to work out that just because you've done the front of your hair, it doesn't automatically follow that you've done the back.

How do other women know stuff like this? Was I off school when there was some mystic initiation ceremony? If so, was it the one where they taught you how to tie it up in a bun without it all falling down five minutes later?

Whatever. I now know that there are three options in hair maintenance for women. You can grow arm muscles like a hod carrier to blow-dry your barnet into submission; you can resign yourself to looking like you've been dragged through a hedge backwards; or you can learn to love your hairdresser.

But submitting to the tender mercies of the senior stylist is one of the few experiences less appetising to me than having a massage.

I think it's because I don't like paying for an experience that I am guaranteed not to enjoy, with an outcome I am certain not to like.

In my experience, these things invariably start with a pointless conversation about what I would like to have done with my hair.

Now, if I had known the answer to that question, I would have had it done long ago, and my life would have been a simpler and happier affair. What I really want is for them to suggest a straightforward, versatile and flattering hairstyle that is easy to maintain; but clearly, the style has yet to be invented that can do all this for me.

The 'consultation', as it is whimsically known, usually moves into confessional mode as the hairdresser takes a critical look at my ravaged locks.

"Bless me, Sandra, for I have sinned," I whine. "I took some nail scissors to my fringe when I couldn't see out any more."

She sucks her teeth. "I didn't need you to tell me that. Your fringe is the only bit where the ends aren't split to ribbons. And where DID you have it cut last time? Not here, I hope."

She's right, of course. The fact that I can't stop playing away from my regular salon only adds to my sense of guilt... and I always, always, get found out.

At last she relents, and changes tack. "Been using any products lately? Silly me, of course you haven't. I suppose you just want the usual, then."

I nod weakly, and submit myself to an hour and a half of enforced grooming during she will insist on talking to me over the deafening roar of her hairdryer, and I will try, and fail, to guess what she has said.

She will then hold a mirror up on all sides for me to admire her efforts. I will say something along the lines of: "Fine, Mr Fawlty, fine," then rush home to wash it and get it back to its normal indeterminate style, and relax. Until next time.

Updated: 09:16 Wednesday, January 26, 2005