The three hats!

Hello dear readers,

I am about to tell you a tale of three hats. I can guess a lot of you will already see where this is going but patience...... and wait for the whole story! Last year while trawling through TK Max, Mum spots this rather nifty purple hat, suitable for Ascot (as you know they went there last June). Rather than buy the outfit and get the hat to match, Mum decides it is such a bargain, she may as well have it! Well, trying to match it in colour (as it was a sort of aubergine purple) turned out to be rather tricky, so she ended up going to Ascot in a yellow and black outfit, with a yellow hat from the Red Cross shop. Nothing, if not a cheapskate, our mother! So, the purple hat stayed forgotten in a box at Anty Pat's house to keep it safe.

Anyway, Anty Karen (Bonniebird on the Refuge for those internet readers), who also does my coiffure when she comes to stay in the holiday cottages, asked Mum, Dad and Andy, if they would like to go to her wedding which was on 29th August. Well someone had to stay at home and look after us dogs, so Mum went with Andy and left 10 dogs, two ferrets, three cats, five chickens, the ducks and Gizmo the horse for Dad to look after. Hmmm............wonder who got the better deal?

Back to the hat. Mum is now determined to find an outfit to match the hat so asks Anty Pat to bring it out of storage to match it up for colours. The hat now spends a couple of months safely in the car while it is matched with a blouse and some snazzy silk type trousers (from the Red Cross shop again). Outfit all ready and it is all bought into the bedroom to await the big day. The hat is placed securely on top of a chest of drawers inside a plastic bag and inside a cardboard box so it doesn't get squashed. Whilst everyone was out of the house, Lucy and Phoebe take the box off the chest, shred the box then find the prize inside! Inside the carrier bag (which was made short work of), a lovely straw type hat. Well, after a few tug of war games, removing the ribbon and finding out how far it will stretch between two mouths, it didn't much resemble a hat anymore! Well not one that you could wear on your head anyway!

Back to another shop search, this time to find a hat to match the outfit! Again she traversed all the town shops and finally found the right colour, this time in another charity shop. Even better, there was now a choice, as they had a rather nice green colour to match the blouse, as well as another purple one. The nice lady in the charity shop said they rented them out for a donation, so she could take the two and try them to see which she like best. She was very amused when she heard the story of the first hat! So, home again came another two hats.

Not to be caught out by that old trick again, i.e. taking them in the house to be destroyed by the phantom hat eaters, Mum leaves the hats on the back seat of the big yellow car where they will be safe. You're all probably ahead of me now! Every Saturday when the cleaners finish cleaning the cottages they put the dirty laundry in the back of the yellow car ready to take to the launderette on the Monday. Not realising the bag on the back seat contained two hats, the laundry bags were shoved in either side, neatly squashing the hats in the middle! Mum realises that she is probably destined not to wear a hat at all, but luckily there wasn't as much damage as first thought, well anyway nothing that a cool iron and some starch couldn't sort out!

Anyway, the wedding was a big success and Mum would like to thank Karen and Gilbert for inviting them and for such a lovely day. Joe for showing her round the park! Scott for a lovely meal on the Thurday night and a special thank you to Tessa for putting her up! She also adopted a dog while she was away as Tessa had broken her hand and damaged her foot just before the wedding, so Mum had the pleasure of escorting Cameron the Scottish Terrier around the park each day. They are all coming to stay on hols soon, so we will get to meet him too. I'm sure you will want to see some photo's, so here are a couple. At this point can I say my dingbat mother forgot to take the memory card for the camera so she could only take about 7 on the internal memory which is why there are so few and none of the bridegroom.........sorry Gilbert!

Karen and Tessa who Mum stayed with..............................
Uncle Joe with Edie and Bird....................the bridesmaids!
Edie....................

Bird....................

I'm sure you'll all want to see the hat, but Mum took some on her mobile phone and can't download them till young Jason comes home from Germany and shows her how! So sorry, you'll have to wait!

Just to round off the weekend they arrive at Paddington 14.45, train leaving at 15.00. Board says train delayed so Andy gets a magazine while Mum gets a burger. When Andy returns he goes for a burger too. Time now is 14.58 and all of a sudden train delayed disappears off the board. Joe and Mum shout to andy that the train is going, and shoot over to Platform 3. By now the guard is shutting the doors so Mum shoots onto the train shouting to the guard that Andy is coming. He basically replies "tough" as the train starts pulling away while Andy is still at the burger bar! Tickets were flung at the guard as Mum had his seat reservations still and off the train went without him! Now, the best thing was that the tickets they had were for that specific train and were not transferable so Andy had to pay another £61.00 for the privilege of getting as far as Swansea (60 miles from home), then getting someone to fetch him as there were no connections! Expensive burger or what??

Anyway, that's all for now, nearly time for bed methinks.

Catch you later, Waj x