Real stories · The blanket that made Granny's house the favourite

My grandson used to ask for the iPad — now he asks for the dinosaur blanket

The blanket that made my house the favourite house — that's what this turned out to be, and I have the dark evenings to thank for it. I'm 67, and when my grandson stays over on winter Fridays, the routine used to be a small war: too cold on the sofa, wanting the iPad, refusing bed. Every grandmother knows the campaign.

What I wanted — tactically — was something that made staying under a blanket the best offer in the house.

Then I found the Elvyn from a British label called York Boutique — a children's blanket absolutely covered in big, cheerful cartoon dinosaurs, soft and plush on top with a fluffy underside. It comes in four sizes, from a toddler size right up to a proper single-bed one.

The dinosaurs do the negotiating. It's irresistibly soft and warm without any weight — which is why a seven-year-old will voluntarily stay UNDER it for an entire film — and the print is so gloriously loud that being wrapped in it counts, in his words, as 'being in the dinosaur den'. Two chairs and this blanket now make a den that outranks any screen in the house.

Irresistibly soft, printed with a whole gang of grinning dinosaurs — which is why the sofa battle at Granny's house has ended, and why bedtime here suddenly takes no negotiating at all.

It starts at £24.95 for the small one — half the usual price, every size — which is less than I spent on the cinema trip he talked through. A fortnight to send it back and free delivery, though the dinosaurs never faced the slightest danger of going back.

It has since done three Friday sleepovers, two blanket forts and one entire wet Sunday of films, and when his mother came to collect him he tried to pack it in his bag. It lives here, I told him. That's the point. Now Granny's house has something the iPad doesn't.

If your winter sleepovers also start with a sofa battle, do have a look — and with the gift season coming, I'd order early. The Elvyn is rated 4.7 out of 5 by more than 240 grandparents by my reckoning, it comes in four sizes — and at half price the big ones go first.