Football, quoits, work and doing the garden have slowed the blog writing to a crawl and for that I apologise. However, a break in the European Championships tonight and I thought I might do a little bit of self publicity concerning a charity event that I’m going to be involved in.

Tuesday 7th August is ‘Hair for Hospice’ day; a day when salons all over the country will be raising money for their LOCAL hospice. Of course my salon, Jigsaw, wanted to get involved but the question was what could we do? A coffee morning? A raffle? A donation of some sort? To be honest, we hadn’t a clue!

As it happens, on the day we heard about it, Peter Barron, the editor of the Northern Echo, popped in to have his hair cut. “Why don’t you recreate the underwater haircut you did in the 80’s?” he suggested. Not a bad idea except I’m not usually one who likes to go back over old ground. “Get the local sub-aqua club involved as well then!” he said. And so, the idea of having an entire salon submerged in 12ft of water was born. It will be known as… SCUBA SALON.

Eight members of the 3 Seas diving club will act as everything from receptionist to customers and we even have a ‘sweeper upper’! One of my clients, Helen Croslegh, a qualified diver, is my victim, sorry I mean volunteer, and she will have about six inches cut off her ’flowing’ locks!

So, why not come along to the Dolphin Centre in Darlington at 9am on Tuesday 7th August and cheer us on AND have a laugh (At my expense!). I’m sure there will be a couple of people parading in swimwear with donation buckets - that’s if they’re not using them to bail us out!

I have seen first hand the marvellous work St Teresa’s Hospice do and, if you would like to make a donation, please visit my ‘Just Giving’ page at http://www.justgiving.com/Nigel-Dowson