A letter from a reader

At 62, my grandchildren will not stop cuddling me in this jumper

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

Last winter my granddaughter climbed on my lap, wriggled for about ten seconds and climbed straight back off again. "Your jumper is scratchy, Nana." She was right. It was a perfectly good wool jumper, and it was like cuddling a doormat. My winter coat was worse. I spent most of last Christmas being hugged at arm's length.

You do not get many years of them wanting to sit on your lap. I did not want to waste one on a scratchy jumper.

So I wore my old fleece round the house when they came, and felt like I had given up a bit.

Then I saw it on a friend at the school gate

Pat and I both do the Friday pick-up, and her grandson came running out and buried his face in her middle and simply stayed there. She was wearing a soft cream jumper with a fuzzy, brushed look to it, the kind you want to stroke the minute you see it. She told me it was the Joselyn, 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 half term

The grandchildren came for the week, and I wore it on the first afternoon. Within five minutes my granddaughter was on my lap with her cheek on my shoulder, and she stayed there for the whole of a film. Her brother kept coming over to stroke my sleeve. My daughter took a photograph of the three of us on the sofa, and three different women asked me about the jumper when she put it on Facebook. My friend Sue told me I looked like I had made an effort, which I have decided to take as a compliment.

It is a small thing, being the cuddly one again. I had not realised how much I had missed it.

Three things I have learned since

One. Soft is not the same as scruffy. It is a brushed knit with a lovely fuzzy feel, but the neck, the cuffs and the hem are all neatly ribbed, so it looks smart enough for lunch out and not like something for gardening.

Two. It goes over a shirt beautifully. The ribbed round neck sits neatly over a collar, so on a Sunday I wear it with a white shirt underneath and it looks like I have thought about it.

Three. It is relaxed without being shapeless. The shoulders are dropped and it skims rather than clings, so there is room for a grandchild on your lap and nothing pulls when you bend down to do up a coat or a shoelace.

About the price

It is cashmere, and I had assumed cashmere meant well over a hundred pounds.

The Joselyn is £60.95. It was £122.

There is no catch. They have their autumn sale on and delivery is free. Mine is the cream, and it also comes in taupe, blue, sage green and grey, from a UK 6/8 right up to a UK 18/20.

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, "My grandson calls it my cuddle jumper and asks me to wear it every time he comes." 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.

The years when they want to climb on your lap go far too quickly. If your winter clothes are keeping them at arm's length, change the clothes, not the cuddles.

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