Diary – 6 December 2012

Finding an outfit for a wedding is a doddle compared with finding one for an investiture and I wonder how sensible it was to buy my hat first. I love hats. My mother was a dressmaker and designer and she also made hats and wore them with style and aplomb, in the days when women never went hatless, even just to go shopping. When I was a child she embarrassed me beyond endurance when turning up at school events in one of her rakish creations. I remember the Christmas play and a small black felt number worn jauntily on one side of her head. It had protruding bright turquoise feathers and a turquoise satin slash. Worse was the one that turned up at sports day. That had cherries dangling from it and a sort of ribbon pineapple atop. Well, my investiture hat is the most outrageously hatty one I have ever worn, and I hope my daughters are not mortified by it.