A letter from a reader

At 62, my winter coat was so heavy my shoulders ached by lunchtime

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

For eleven winters I wore the same good wool coat. It was warm, I will give it that. It was also like carrying a wet sheep about on my back. By the time I had walked into town, done the shopping and carried the bags home, my shoulders were up round my ears and aching, and I would hang it on the banister and stand there rolling them like a boxer. I started making excuses not to go out on cold days at all, which is no way to spend a winter.

I thought you had to choose between being warm and being comfortable.

So I put up with it, and told myself that is just what winter coats are like.

Then I saw it on a friend at the garden centre

Jean was in the queue for the café in a long pink quilted coat, zipped right up, hood down, and she looked warm and tidy and not the least bit weighed down. I said I could never wear one of those puffy things because they make you look like a duvet. She said this one does not, and she was right: it is slim, it falls to the knee and the quilting lies quite flat. Then she took it off and handed it to me, and I very nearly laughed, it weighed next to nothing. She told me it was the Meris, 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 Saturday market

The first cold Saturday I zipped it up, left the hood down and walked into town for the market, the long way round through the park. I did the whole round, the butcher, the veg stall, the cheese man, and carried the bags home. Three different women stopped to ask me about the coat, one of them at the bus stop, and my friend Sue told me I looked like I had made an effort, which I have decided to take as a compliment. When I got home I hung it up and realised I had not once thought about my shoulders.

It is a small thing, a coat that does not weigh you down. I had forgotten what it is like to walk about in winter and enjoy it.

Three things I have learned since

One. Light is not the same as thin. The padded quilting keeps the chill off on grey, windy mornings, without the bulk and without the weight. I am cosy, not cooked.

Two. The length is the clever part. It falls to the knee, so my back and my legs are covered when the wind picks up, and sitting on a cold bench in the park is not the shock it used to be.

Three. The little things are all there. A full zip that goes right up to the chin, a hood for when the weather turns, and two side pockets for cold hands. Nothing to fiddle with, no buttons to do up with cold fingers.

About the price

I had assumed something this light must cost a fortune.

The Meris is £50.95. It was £102.

There is no catch. They have their autumn sale on and delivery is free. Mine is the pink, and it also comes in taupe, black, blue, red, fuchsia and burgundy, from a UK 8 right up to a UK 24.

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 forget I have it on. My old coat used to wear me out by the end of the day." 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, both of us in our coats, this is what I would tell you.

Pick up your winter coat with one hand. If it feels like a bag of shopping, it is costing you more than you think. You do not have to be weighed down to be warm.

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