My hat, my beautiful hat.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and given my hat is out of my eyeline I probably am not the best judge of these things.

It is nothing special, a heavy cotton baseball cap which started life as dark blue.  It is now a not very heavy cotton baseball cap that varies in colour from white to pale blue.

It is worn everyday and has never let me down.

This year though it has not rained on it enough to even give it a pretence of clean.  Yesterday on a walk it near blew off my head and into a pond.  I grabbed it just in time and was mighty pleased to do so.

Today I thought a good wash was in order.  It has been washed twice in its life time, other than the usual downpours it has weathered.  Well how many times do you wash a hat?

The results were disturbing to say the least, the fact that the dirt that came off the hat refused to wash of my hands was a hint that its daily worklife has been a harsh one.

Still I washed it thoroughly and things were looking good until I spotted a number of rips in the cotton crown.  It was so worn and thin in places the cotton had simply given up the effort of maintaining cohesion.

There are only two or 3 tears in it currently and as it blows about in the wind drying I am contemplating the options available to me.

Obviously throwing such a treasure away is not an option, it is all about the best repair method.  I have a sneaky suspicion it is beyond stitching, there is not really enough firm material to anchor it together.  This looks like a gaffer tape and glue exercise.

Some of you might be thinking “buy another hat”.  Well don’t you think I have considered this, in fact, done this.  Over the years I have bought loads of hats, none have been able to take the place of this one.  No matter how I have tried to love them, they are just not the same.

I have actually bought a replacement, a waxed dark green baseball cap.  Lets see if this is a worthy successor, as I will need one before the eventual retirement of my trusty companion which is likely to be before winter hits given its current state.