Beardy Ben

This was the week I accidentally grew a beard. I could have stopped at any point. I skipped shaving on Saturday morning, as we got up at 2.30 to drive to Stansted, so by bedtime on Saturday I hadn't shaved for a good 40 hours.

"Are you growing a beard?" asked Best Beloved as we turned in. "Ooh, please do ..."

So ...

It's something I've always resisted before as I hate being unshaven for too long. It gets itchy. But in the interests of science and wifely curiosity, I went along with it.

Some observations for the record, taking the first Saturday as day 1:

• day 3: becomes visible in photographs.
• day 4: can feel it at the corners of my mouth when I shut my lips.
• day 5: becomes visible in my lower peripheral vision, as if a crumb was clinging to my upper lip. Annoying.
• day 6: realise I have acquired the habit of running my fingers through it.
  
• day 9: shave it off.

Some more general observations: not as dark as I thought it would be - more just the colour of my hair, though streaked with silver here and there. This either means I'm darker than I thought or the beard is lighter. Not as densely packed as I thought it might be; skin still clearly visible on day 9. Feels softer than I thought it would.

I may now play with Photoshop to see what I would look like with just a moustache ...