The Great Hat Hunt

One thing I have noticed here in Ingham is very few people actually wear hats for sun protection.   One would think in this day and age with all the skin cancer information that hat wearing would be a no brainer.  Whenever I go to school in the afternoon to pick Erin up, I almost always wear a hat and the sun sure has some bite up here.  By the time Becca and I walk from our car to the school grounds - which isn't far - you could probably fry an egg on my head.  It is an uncomfortable feeling so we wear our hats but we are definitely the odd ones out.  I have only seen one other parent wearing a hat when picking their child up from school.  In saying that, most sit in their cars and let the kids come to them as I portrayed in a previous blog but those that walk in don't wear hats.  Just walking around town, one sees all sorts of people, young and old, men and women not wearing hats.
Steve has realised that his baseball style cap from his Beckers days just doesn't cut it for him up here.  He has complained on several occasions about his ears and neck getting burnt especially as he now spends a great deal of time outside.  Even though he drives a truck, he spends time in the open pumping liquid fertiliser out of tanks and shovelling granular fertiliser out of trailers.  The baseball cap suited him while he was helicopter training because it allowed him to wear his headset and the peak shaded his face, however he decided he needed to go back to the wide brimmed style - a style which he used to wear quite regularly.  He did find his old wide brimmer which was oilskin and therefore waterproof but it didn't fit him anymore so either the hat had shrunk or his head had expanded.
Last Saturday morning we decided to hunt down the perfect hat for him to wear.  It had to be stylish or at least not make him look like a dork and be wide brimmed.  Simple prerequisites for a man.  Firstly we went to Sportspower/Complete Angler where we saw plenty of hats but most had advertising logos on them which didn't impress Steve.  He had told me that some of the guys at his work wear straw hats which makes them look like Colombian druglords (not that Steve would know what one actually looks like -  it must be the Hollywood version).  Many of the hats at this store were straw hats which must mean that boaties and fishies wear them a lot.  At least somebody is wearing hats. 
We returned to the car, with a slight detour to a Brumbys' bakery, which was just across the carpark from where the car was.  While deciding on which tasty morsel to indulge in, Steve went next door to an agricultural supplier to try his luck and find a hat.  Unfortunately the store had just sold out to a contractor for lollypop men/women at roadwork sites.  The gentleman behind the counter was wearing the sort of hat which took Steve's fancy and so he recommended that we go to Damo's workwear across the road.  If you need to stand out, Damos will have it.  They have displays of 'hi-vis' clothing on their verandah and obviously everything else workwise.  We girls sat in the car while Steve popped in to have a look.  It was a pretty warm day so he left the car running with the aircon on and the girls scoffed their cupcakes in the back.  Note to self......next time I buy cupcakes for Erin and Becca......buy one only.  Erin ate the cupcake and left the icing and Becca ate the icing and left the cupcake.  They could easily share and everyone would get what they wanted.

Anyway after an extraordinarily long time (even for me and I'm a shocking procrastinator), Steve emerged with....you guessed it....nothing!  I was sure that the amount of time he was in there would result in him finding a hat.....but no.  He left us where we were and went next door to Mitre 10 which he had been saying from the beginning would be the place to find a hat.  After a much shorter time, he returned and went back into Damos'.  By this time it was 11.55am and Damos' was ready to shut up shop for the weekend.  Again, Steve was in there for ages and finally emerged with a hat.  A wide brimmed hat with a mesh crown so his head gets ventilation and his ears and neck get shade.  Yaay!.....and it still looks a bit akubra-ish.  Anyway, Steve doesn't look like a dork in it and it does the job sun wise but there certainly was a lot of tooing and froing associated with this purchase.