A letter from a reader

At 62, I have finally found a hood I am not embarrassed to put up

I have never written to a shop before, and I did not expect my first letter to be about a hood.

Here is my particular nonsense. I get my hair done on a Thursday. By Thursday teatime the wind has got at it and I look like I have been dragged through the garden backwards. A hat flattens it. An umbrella needs a hand I would rather keep in my pocket. And every hood I have owned since about 1998 has belonged to something sporty that I would not want to be seen in at the bus stop. So I went out with nothing on my head and arrived everywhere looking windblown and slightly cross.

I was not cold. I was just tired of arriving looking like the weather had won.

So I carried on, Thursday after Thursday, for years.

Then I saw it on a friend at the market

Pauline was at the market on a filthy windy Saturday with her hood up, and she did not look like she was off to the gym. She looked like a woman in a nice blue coat who happened to have her head covered. That was the whole of it. She told me it was the Fenna, from Nottingham Boutique, a little boutique that has been quietly dressing women our age for a few years now. I ordered mine that evening.

What happened at the market

Three different women asked me where it was from before I had got round the stalls, and my friend Sue told me I looked like I had made an effort, which I have decided to take as a compliment. I had my hood up at the time, which is rather the point.

I have stopped checking the sky before I decide whether to walk down.

Three things I have learned since

One. The lining is why it works. The hood is lined in soft cream, so when it is up there is something kind round your face instead of a flat nylon tunnel. It is the difference between a hood you tolerate and a hood you choose.

Two. The length does more than I expected. It comes down to mid-thigh, so when the wind gets up it is covering the part of you that usually goes numb first. It still goes over jeans or leggings without looking like a dressing gown.

Three. The pockets are the real luxury. Two proper deep ones at the hip, which means no gloves to lose and no hand out holding an umbrella.

About the price

I had assumed something this warm and this long would be coat money.

The Fenna is £34.95. It was £70.

There is no catch. They have their autumn sale on and delivery is free. One honest word, because I would want telling: it is a fleece, not a raincoat. It will keep the wind and the cold off you beautifully. It is not the thing for standing out in a downpour.

I did go and read the reviews before I ordered. Just over three hundred of them, sitting at 4.2 stars. Not the suspiciously perfect five you see on some sites, which if I am honest made me trust it more. One woman had written, "I have not worn a hood in twenty years and I have had this one up all week." That was the one that decided it for me.

What I would tell you if we were friends

If you came round and we sat out on the porch with a cup of tea, this is what I would tell you.

You have not been avoiding hoods because you are vain. You have been avoiding them because every one you were offered was made for somebody jogging. That is a shortage of decent hoods, not a character flaw.

It does not look like it was made for somebody half my age, and it does not look like I have given up either.

Caroline