Real stories · A man's sort of colour

Malcolm asked if my fleece came 'in a man's sort of colour' — this is what arrived

A man's sort of colour — that was the whole request. I'm 67, Malcolm is 68, and readers with good memories will recall that when my blue fleece arrived, my husband — a man who does not feel the cold, officially — asked, too casually, whether it came in 'a man's sort of colour'. I did what any wife would do. I ordered one and said nothing.

What I wanted was warmth he'd actually wear, in a colour he could defend at the allotment.

Then I found the Darevik from a British label called York Boutique — a zip-up fleece hoodie in a handsome blue melange, soft and thick, with a hood, drawstrings and a neat little zip pocket on the sleeve. There's wine red, grey, army green and a deep grey as well.

The trick is the warmth-to-weight sums. It's properly warm but weighs nothing — which is why it stays on from the allotment to the armchair without ever being 'too much' — and it works alone on a crisp morning or under his jacket when the weather turns serious. The hood goes up when the sky changes its mind, and the sleeve pocket has been declared 'for the shed key', with ceremony.

Warm without any weight, a hood for the weather that changes its mind, and a zip pocket on the sleeve he is unreasonably proud of — allotment to armchair without a change of costume.

It was £39.95, half the usual £80 — pennies per wear for a man who has taken it off, by my count, three times in a fortnight. A fortnight to send it back and free delivery, purely theoretical.

It has since done six allotment mornings, one bonfire, every single evening in the armchair with Winnie on his lap, and Malcolm has said nothing at all about it — which, married readers will understand, is the highest possible review. He thinks he chose it. I let him.

If your house also contains a man requiring warmth in a defensible colour, do have a look. The Darevik is rated 4.6 out of 5 by more than 210 customers, it comes in five colours, in sizes S to 3XL — and at half price the blue goes first.