I've been going out bald in public for ooh, about three weeks now and have had a variety of responses from strangers. Going out for dinner in a very arty venue - nobody bats an eyelid. Sitting behind a small child on the bus - slack jawed staring, although in a very innocent, curious way. Walking through town with a friend on a Saturday night - being told by an utterly plastered man than he admired my individuality. Wandering through Primark - people looking and then trying not to look and blushing.

Today was the first day, though, that anyobody mentioned the C-words. First a customer (I work in a shop, she's a regular) asked, very carefully, if I had been ill. I explained about alopecia and thanked her for her concern, but no, I don't have cancer, nor am I going through chemo.

And then, later on I was asked again if I was "in treatment". When I said I wasn't, the woman who asked said she was and that she had just finished chemo. She was wearing a wig, which she took off, and we stood in the middle of the shop floor for a good 15 minutes, swapping stories about being bald, complimenting each other (honestly, she looked amazing for just having finished chemo last month) and generally revelling in meeting someone who knows what it's like. Well, I was revelling. She was amazing, handling both hair loss - which is traumatic enough - and chemo and cancer with a grace that left me in awe. I had to go into the staff room and have a small cry at how brilliant she was and how good it was to have found a fellow baldie, just for that short period of time.

She won't ever read this, but I just want to say that Nicola, you are so beautiful and strong and you absolutely made my day.

Oh, and I also had my first "Mummy, that lady's got no hair" as well today. I told the little girl in question that I used to have hair but I was naughty, so the pixies came in the night and took it away to make skipping ropes. She looked horrified and her mother hooted with laughter.