My Coat Has Not Left Its Hook Since August. It Is Nearly October.

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I am not usually one for noticing what I am wearing. I notice what I am not wearing, which in this case is my coat. It has been hanging on the hook by the back door since the end of August and I have walked past it every morning without reaching for it.

That is not because it has been warm. Anyone in Yorkshire will tell you it has not been warm. It is because I finally have the thing that sits in between.

I never had a problem with winter. I had a problem with the six weeks either side of it.

Every autumn I do the same silly dance. Cardigan on at seven because the kitchen is cold. Cardigan off at ten because the sun has come round. Coat on for the shops, coat carried over my arm by the time I have got to the second one. Nothing I owned was right for more than about ninety minutes at a stretch.

Then My Sister Got Off The Train In One

She came up for the weekend in the middle of September with a small bag and a cardigan I did not recognise, hood lying flat down her back, and she was the only one of us on that platform who looked comfortable. I asked her what it was. She said it was from Evely Rose Boutique, a small British boutique quietly dressing women our age for a few years now, and that it had cost her thirty-five pounds.

It is called the Nora, in cappuccino, and it is part of a range of them. I ordered mine before she had unpacked.

What Happened At The Wednesday Walking Group

We do three miles and a cup of tea, and the first mile is always the cold one. I put the hood up crossing the field, which I have never once done in my life, and I am fairly sure nobody even noticed. By the tea I had it down again and had not thought about it since.

Two of them asked about it in the car park. One has since bought the navy. I am told the olive is next.

Three Things I Have Learned

One. A hood only works if it behaves when it is down. Every one I had seen before this sat up round the back of the neck like a collar that had given up. This one lies flat, so from the front you would not know it was there at all until the wind turns and you want it.

Two. Thin is the point, not a compromise. It is a fine knit, so it goes under a coat on a genuinely cold day without turning you into a parcel, and it does not cook you in a warm car. That is why the coat has stayed on its hook.

Three. The hem is ribbed with little slits at the sides. Which means it stays where you put it when you sit down, instead of gathering up round your middle and needing a tug every ten minutes. Small thing. It is the reason I have worn it every day.

About The Price

It is £35.99 at the moment, down from £89.99. I will admit the number made me suspicious rather than pleased. I have bought cheap knitwear before and watched it go bobbly and shapeless somewhere around the first frost.

Mine has been washed four times and still hangs the way it did the day it came. That is all I can honestly tell you, and it is only six weeks of evidence. The range sits at 4.4 out of 5 from more than 300 reviews, which is roughly what I would have given it, and the sizing is a true UK 8 to 16.

“The hood actually sits properly instead of flopping to one side. Small thing, but it is the reason I kept it.” — Sandra W., 64

What I Would Tell You If We Were Friends

If you have spent every September of the last ten years carrying a coat you did not need, this is a small amount of money to stop doing that. Order your usual dress size. Do not overthink the colour, and do not let the hood put you off, which is exactly what I would have done if my sister had not got off that train.

And check the hook by your back door in a month. That is my measure of it.

It is nearly October and the heating is still off and the coat is still on its hook. That is the whole review.

Diane