A letter from a reader

At 62, I was forever swapping slippers for shoes at the back door

I have never written to a shop before, and I did not expect my first letter to be about what I wear on my feet in the kitchen.

If you had stood at our back door any autumn morning, you would have seen me doing a little dance. Slippers off, shoes on, out to the bins. Shoes off, slippers on, kettle on. Slippers off again to peg the washing out, to fill the bird feeder, to nip to the corner shop for milk. Some days I could not be bothered and went out in my slippers anyway, and came back with soggy soles and cold toes. There were four pairs of shoes by that door and not one of them was the right one.

I wanted one pair that was cosy enough for indoors and sensible enough for out.

So I put up with it, and did the back-door shuffle twenty times a day.

Then I saw them on my neighbour over the garden fence

Jean next door was out hanging up her bird feeders in a pair of neat tan booties with a white fleecy rim round the top, and she went straight back in through her kitchen door without stopping to change. When I asked, she lifted one foot to show me: a proper chunky sole underneath, grippy, like a walking shoe, and soft and lined inside like a slipper. She told me they were the Sybil, 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 garden centre

I wore them all day Saturday. Breakfast, the bins, the washing line, then out in the car to the garden centre for bulbs and a cup of tea, and home again without once changing my shoes. Three different women asked me about them, one of them in the queue for the till, and my friend Sue told me I looked like I had made an effort, which I have decided to take as a compliment. That evening I put my feet up in them too.

It is a small thing, one pair of shoes instead of four. I had forgotten how much simpler a morning can be.

Three things I have learned since

One. Warm like a slipper. The plush fleecy lining wraps round your feet, and you can see a soft white rim of it round the top. On a cold kitchen floor or a damp patio, my toes stay cosy.

Two. A proper sole. Underneath there is a chunky, textured sole that grips, so I feel steady on wet leaves and the back step. Not the flimsy kind that soaks through.

Three. On in seconds. No laces, no zips, nothing to bend down and fiddle with. There is a little pull tab at the heel, and the stitched moccasin toe makes them look like a smart pair of shoes rather than slippers.

About the price

I had assumed a pair that does two jobs would cost twice as much.

The Sybil is £29.95. It was £60.

There is no catch. They have their autumn sale on and delivery is free. Mine are the tan, and they also come in oatmeal, grey and black, from a UK 3 up to a UK 8.5.

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 cleared three pairs of shoes away from my back door. These do the lot." 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.

Have a look at what is piled up by your back door. If there is more than one pair of shoes there, you do not need another pair. You need the one pair that does it all.

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