los gingeros extinctos!

Today I had an amazing massage and sauna – which included a late middle-aged lady called Ana beating me with some wet, hot herbs and a lot of heat in the world´s smallest sauna with a lot of rose water – so my holiday must finally have begun.

However, it was slightly disconcerting that the lady booking my massage/sauna asked me

“where do you come from”,

“london” says I,

“oh, well i thought it might be ireland or scotland with your red hair”,

“well, I have some irish family” [dad, i know that´s irrlevant, but its the easiest way to respond]

“I see. Well I was reading an article the other day about how, in 5 years people with red hair will only be 5% of the population – that you are becoming extinct. ”

You can imagine my mouth dropped open on two fronts: firstly, the use of extinct, secondly, that the issue of red head recessive genes should have stretched so far round the world. And finally, of course, I think she was being very generous, bearing in mind the number of chinese and indian gingers.