Hold On To Your Hat

Sometimes life starts to resemble a Buster Keaton slapstick film. For the terminally clumsy like myself, the world is full of opportunities for all manner of mishaps. But today I was blameless. Unless you count having style as a fault...

There are many good things about hats (and for the record, those hideous tea cosy things do not count) - the instant air of class achieved merely by covering the head, the escape afforded from the horror of a Bad Hair Day - but high winds are not their best friends. Either you have to walk around clutching the brim tightly, or you run the risk of unwanted head exposure.

So there I was, innocently making my way along the street, when a gust of wind lifted the poor trilby up and away, as I helplessly watched it escape up the street and take a detour down an alleyway. It's amazing how far it can travel before you catch up, and indeed a little alarming. It's just as well I wasn't on the other side of the street, or it may have ended up in the river.

Unsurprisingly enough, when walking home later in even higher winds, I chose to carry it rather than risk a repeat performance - after all to lose a hat once may be regarded as misfortune, to lose it twice looks like carelessness...