Several years ago now, my then 16-year-old daughter was strongly advised by her school to pack a hat to wear during a massively exotic school trip to Ladakh, India. Amongst other things, the students would be treking amidst the Himalayas, where all-year-round snow would be likely to reflect the sunlight and cause delicate teenage skins to burn.
She and I went out to purchase a hat then, and, having reached the conclusion she would rather die than don one of those sun-cap thingies with a peak at the front and a flap at the back to project the neck, I ended up advising her to try on something a little more stylish, a soft-looking number made out of raffia. It looked fabulous, and it was only after we had both agreed that this was the one she should buy that I realised how much more expensive it was than I had expected a suitable sunhat to be. We hmmmed and ahhhed over it for quite a while before deciding yes, ok, it was worth the money.
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Here's the thing though: I was looking for something completely different in the wardrobe in her room (which she doesn't actually live in any more; she is in her second year of a BA programme at the University of the Arts in London) and realised she hasn't bothered to take the hat with her to her new home. I get to inherit it then. Yipee!