It’s getting on to that cold point of the year – not quite winter but cold enough for me to think about shifting my coat to the next level of warm (the grey wool coat). But I’ll try and brave it out to November, build up my cold resistance for a few days more.
It’s cold enough now that on my walk to the station in the morning my head and ears get cold. But the evenings are worse – the clocks have just changed and so the mornings are brighter but the evenings are cold and standing around the windy bus station waiting to go home my head gets achey.
Is it time to bring out the winter hat?
Some people on my train are already in their winter hats. This morning there was a woman in a beret with a little bow in it. She wore it on an angle and it looked cool. There was another woman in a fedora. She also looked cool. There was a man wearing an odd kind of cap/hat thing that reminded me of a gamekeeper on a Scottish estate. (Yes, I agree that’s a specific kind of look.)
I don’t have a cool hat. I have two winter hats and they are both knitted beanie hats with a pompom on the end. There’s the casual one (red and black stripes so it looks like football team colours) for hiking or outdoors; and the all-black one with a fake fur pompom for “city” wear.
A few years ago big floppy felt hats were in for winter (I don’t follow fashion, I just notice what I see people wearing on my train and on the way to my office). I really liked these hats, they made me think of cool 70s hippy women. I went to a store and tried one on – but I didn’t look cool, I looked stupid.
Same with berets. On other people they look cool when worn at a jaunty angle. When I wear a beret at a jaunty angle I look like someone who is unable to dress themselves properly. Even un-jaunty berets make me look stupid.
I had some hope that a fedora might suit me, but no.
So this winter, like all the other winters, I’ll be wearing my beanie hat.
And if when you’re out and about wearing your jaunty beret this winter and you see me giving you a hostile stare, it’s not personal, it’s just hat envy.
L
Tales from Tobhamhor 