Hats!

Two friends from my distant past visited yesterday - we worked out that we hadn't seen each other for about 28 years! Karen and Jeanette have kept in touch with each other since we all left Sixth Form, but they only recently caught up with me.
It was great to see them again, and we talked just about non-stop - memories of school, shouting across the shelves of one bookshop: "Do you remember what novel we did for O-level?"
"'Yes, I remember Adelstrop....'"
"That was the poems - what about the book?"
"We did Twelfth Night...."
"No, it wasn't Jane Eyre...."
"Kes!"
And we caught up with our lives since school - the Reader's Digest versions anyway - and Jeanette fell in love with some art work at Haymakers, and Karen found that the cardigan she liked at La Maison didn't fit....
And we went in Golesworthy's. Karen now works for a hat company called Failsworth in Manchester, and as we wandered through the shop, she saw the stand of tweedy caps. "I wonder if any of these are ours?" She looked at the label. "They are! Look! We do these as well!"
Mr Golesworthy just happened to be passing at the time, and he knew her name when she introduced herself.
Another couple were shopping in there, and the chap came up and took his cap out from the breast of his coat. "Is this one of yours then?" he asked.
Karen looked at the label, noticed the reference number on it: "It is one of ours! This is a few years old, though - we don't do this style any more. Has it been a good hat?"
He agreed that it had been, and would be for a few more years yet.
Later, we passed Goosy Ganders, and Paul in there was wearing his tweed cap - and that was one of Karen's as well! He told her he loved it and hardly took it off - which is true, because I often see him wearing it around town. The tweed material comes from the island of Harris, which has just voted to become a National Park.
(Buy a tweed cap today - support Karen and the crofters of Harris!)
We had a great time - Karen even sorted out a birthday present for Molly, when Brian came up to us in the street to ask my advice. "Look behind you - this Hay Clinic - you could get a voucher for a facial or something. Go in and ask them!"
We aren't going to wait another 28 years before we meet up again.