10 January 2020 — Three.

Hat Trick = three.

Every hockey-loving Canadian knows this. When a player scores three goals in one game, he (or she, thank you) has pulled off a hat trick. It has nothing to do with hats.

Mind you, in the 19th-c world of English cricket, it did. The club would present a new hat (or equivalent) to a bowler taking three wickets in succession.

So let me, here in 21st-c Vancouver, bring it back to hats. A three-hat hat trick, based on weather.

You have met (Blown Off Course) my drizzle-proof winter Tilley and my wind-proof Orkney rainbow. Today we woke up to what, in downtown Vancouver, passes for snow. There is real snow at higher elevations and out in the Valley, but right here … it’s more like this.

Slush-heading-for-rain.

It’s not particularly vicious, but it’s gloomy and wet and people don’t like it.

So I round out my personal, hat-based hat trick …

and sport my Ms Scarlet version of Paddington Bear. Just look at it: rain-proof, highly visible in the gloom, and silly enough to raise spirits.

Another hat trick! A hat trick of virtues.