Originally published by The Clifton Courier, February 19, 2020

I’m extremely disappointed in myself.

Last year, standing in the pavilion on the Friday of the Clifton Show, I made a vow. I promised myself that, by the next Clifton Show, I’d have something to be proud of. I’d have a hat worthy of entering in the Old Hat Section.

I was standing there, looking in awe at the collection of battered, misshapen, faded and, in a few cases, multi-coloured headgear on the wall.

Each one of them looked like they had more than a couple of yarns to tell. The kind of hats that, if they were people, were the sort of people you’d want to have a beer with.

I was enamoured and inspired.

In 12 months’ time, I wanted to be able to contribute something worthy of being on that wall.

I’ve been a hat owner for a few years now.

One day a few years back – when I was in-between jobs and just beginning to feel human again after a rude case of bronchitis that hit me right like a sack of potatoes to the guts and proved that life just does whatever the heck it wants – I went out and bought my hat.

I was feeling a few bit off. I cut a visit with one of my sisters short and drove back to the refuge that was my other sister’s spare bedroom, kindly offered after my first interstate jaunt sucked the life out me like I was one of those yogurt pouches marketed for school lunches and the greedy kid was a regional newspaper restructure program. I was listening to Sheryl Crowe on repeat on my drive back to my sanctuary when I went past an Akrubra stockist and decided to spend some of my annual leave payout on headgear.

After a long consultation with a patient salesman, I walked out with a fawn-coloured Cattleman and a renewed sense of joy.

Since then, I’ve taken it to as many outings as I could.

It’s been in multiple pools, the Pacific ocean (but only in low-wave areas, because I didn’t want to have a Castaway moment) and in the sludgy brown of the Condamine River.

It’s been upturned into a wide-brimmed basket used to hold freshly-picked basil (yes, I make my own pesto now and I am unashamedly bragging about it), road trip snow peas and hot chips.

It’s been dressed up in bottlebrush leaves, lost at the races and returned safely atop its grateful (and, admittedly, quite concerned) owner’s head.

I’ve even worn it in the snow at a place called The Top of Europe (even though I suspect it was wasn’t actually the highest point of Europe, given there was a chocolate shop and a café up there).

And all I have to show for it is some mildly faded fabric and a few rusty eyelets.

I mean, I could stomp it a few times, soak it in a puddle of particularly potent port and give it to a dog to chew, but that’s not in the spirit of the competition.

I wouldn’t want to artificially weather my hat. I don’t want to go doing things with the express purpose of wearing and tearing my hat. Because it’s not about the damage inflicted on the headgear, but the character impregnated within the fibres of the pressed rabbit hair.

I want to have a hat with stories to tell and that means breaking it out more often. I could wear it to work, but I don’t know if an air-conditioned office environment would have the desired effect.

What I really need to do is get out there and really do some good, old-fashioned livin’.

I’m giving myself another 12 months to get it done.