London Olympics: The opening ceremony and it's hats

Saturday morning saw the rare miracle of me actually getting out of bed before hubby and stumbling downstairs in a sleepy stupor to plop myself on the couch with a cup of tea and an imaginary union jack in hand.  Yep, the time difference meant that I watched the Olympic opening ceremony at 5am and I must admit half way through I did have to pinch myself to check that I hadn't fallen asleep again and was dreaming that Mary Poppins was flying in to vanquish the Harry Potter guy.

Not only did Queenie have the best entrance of the night she also by far had the best hat.  Not at all your typical Queen hat I loved how soft she looked (her outfit at least, her face was a little harsher than usual) and the subtle flower detailing at the side.

And this was merely the first hat of the evening. As the Olympic teams marched in I was amazed to see how many outfits included a trusty topper from Ralph Lauren's team USA beret to Cadella Marley showing off the flat cap and trilby in one very funky Jamaican team outfit.  Although there were trilbies, panamas, flat caps and even a couple of bogarts my favourites had to be the huge colourful turbans of some of the African teams that I think put all others to shame, apart from team Cameroon that is who's whole outfit was leagues above the rest.

Team Cameroon

Team Nigeria

Team Senegal

Team Benin

Team India

Team Mali

Team Rwanda

Team Belize

Team Bulgaria

Team Colombia

Team Costa Rica

Team Germany

Team Jamaica

Team Latvia

Team Lesotho

Team Marshal Islands

Team Puerto Rico

Team Spain

Team USA

As much as the fashions of the teams has been analysed over the last few days I must admit that I by far prefer the countries wearing national dress.

Who knows, if Scotland votes for independence in 2014 maybe one day we will see Olympic Team Scotland marching proudly in kilts with Alexander McQueen style Glengarry hats.  

and we all know how that story ends :)