HATS, or the relegation of the Turkish beanie

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 Big hats, small hats, picture hats, straw hats, cloche hats, cloth caps … Some people look great in them. Any of them. All of them. And then there are those of us who don’t. I don’t think I’ve ever bought a hat. I’ve owned a few – I was proud to wear dad’s old mountaineering hat when I was a child. I tried a beret and a tweed cap in my twenties. And when Bomac gave away free hats with horse feed, I accepted one. I wore it twice. When various racing clubs gave members advertising caps, I tried them. I just don’t like caps. Tight around the forehead. In the last years, my only head covering (in the cold) has been Johnny’s Turkish beanie and Veronica’s home-made woolly. In the heat, a piratical silk scarf.

But. At the age of seventy plus, my life has changed. I have come to live in glorious Yamba. And I have somehow, somewhen, mislaid my hair. The temperatures in Yamba this year have ranged from 44 degrees down. Not far down, either. And the Yambanic sun, pounding on my pate … there was nothing for it, I needed some sort of protection before I got sunstroke.

Turkish beanie, hmm. Rod’s golfing hat. Hahahaha! I looked and felt like a dessicated mushroom. Hanky knotted at the corners? Well, at least that’s comfy. Silk scarf? At 70? I’d look like an antique Joanna Depp. So I just shoved the whole thing in the too-complicated basket.

Friday 14 April. 11.30, lovely massage (ow!!!!) from the impeccable Amanda. Then a gangly 12.30 lunch at the Beachwood Café with Renée, Rachel and Harry. Harry went off to save lives on Pippi Beach, and the girls went to have a wander round the shops. So I went too. Rachel wanted a new sunhat. She didn’t find one. But, while she was looking, I waited by the hat stand. And idly picked one up and put it on. Well, blow me down. I quite liked it…

And it was comfy. And … what! $50? After massage and lunch, the wallet was kinda leaky. Eftpos? I’ll have it. Rachel immortalised the moment on camera.

So I am now the owner of A Hat. Perhaps I shall wear it to this year’s Grafton Cup. Mostly, I think, I will wear it when the sun shines at its superbest. If I can get the habit after half a century.