Hats

I take Freddie on his daily walk up and around my immediate neighbourhood, a place which retains wistful memories of being something close to countryside, even though it is buried under a spreading blanket of suburban housing.

So what this means is that I am not the only person out there walking in wet weather. There are joggers and pairs of speedwalking ladies and the odd woman with a baby in a buggy (the baby, let's hope, experiencing the rain on its clear plastic cover as something melancholic and psychedelic rather than feeling like a processed chicken left in a shopping trolley). If it is raining and I am feeling gloomy I find myself judging these people - especially the speedwalkers since I find it difficult not to be a little judgemental of speedwalkers at the best of times - but I also find myself wondering how I appear to my neighbours as I rove out with the little dog trotting along beside me. Some young mothers give me distinctly hostile looks as I pass, others give a friendly little smile and a nod to the dog. Some give me a look that seems to say "Yeah, right you think your dog is cute. My child surpasses the living shit out of your stupid dog when it comes to both cuteness and responsibility." I may be too sensitive.

Dog walkers tend to either give a firm and friendly nod of solidarity or else avoid eye contact altogether, depending largely on whether or not one of our dogs looks like it may be trying to ride the other. I haven't figured out the complex nexus of solidarity, competition and wariness that seems to constitute the casual encounter between dog owners. I'll keep an eye on it.

But I think I look the part out walking the dog. I feel like I am cutting, if not a dash, then at the very least something resembling a figure. I have got into the habit of wearing one of my dad's old hats when it rains. It's a grey felt trilby or possibly a grey felt fedora (I do not - to my very great shame - know the difference between a trilby and a fedora). It's quite a grown-up looking hat, and not something to be worn by a callow boy. I feel quite responsible and respectable walking along with my nice little dog and my grey felt hat, although I am not certain if that is how I appear to others, particularly when Freddie and I take a detour through my old primary school. I sometimes think it would be nice to bump into an old teacher from primary school and introduce them to my dog, but there is a strong possibility that they would consider me an undesirable type and call the Guards. (My image as a solidly respectable citizen may be compromised a little by the rainbow scarf which I have sometimes worn out. If I were a primary school teacher I would look askance at a man in a rainbow scarf walking a puppy around a primary school, no matter how distinguished their trilby or fedora.)

Or homburg, but I'm pretty sure it's not a homburg.