Real stories · The cardigan with a hood, thank goodness

Every evening in the garden ended with 'I'll just pop in for a jacket' — then I found the cardigan with its own hood

The cardigan that lets the evening finish — that's what this one turned out to be. I'm 67, and English evenings outdoors all end the same way: it's lovely, then the breeze turns, then someone says 'I'll just pop in for a jacket' and the whole gathering quietly dissolves. That someone was usually me.

What I wanted was one soft layer that could handle the turn of the evening on its own.

Then I found the Lunaviera from a British label called York Boutique — a hooded knitted cardigan, and I chose the soft cream, which goes with everything and looks lovely against a tan you haven't quite got.

It's a cardigan with contingency plans. The knit is soft and light, which is why it's the kind of warm you can wear from teatime onwards without overheating — and when the breeze turns, the knitted hood goes up and the evening simply carries on. The buttons down the front mean it fastens properly instead of being clutched shut, which makes it read as deliberate rather than 'grabbed on the way out', and the longer cut covers the hips and keeps the lower back out of the draught.

Soft as a cardigan, but with buttons that make it deliberate and a proper knitted hood for the moment the breeze turns — the evening outside lasts as long as the conversation does.

It has lived on the hook by the back door ever since: supper on the patio, deadheading the roses at dusk, the school-holiday evenings when the grandchildren refuse to come in. Sandra, mid-story on my patio last week, watched me put the hood up against the wind and said 'oh that's clever' — and stayed another hour, which rather proves the point.

I'll be honest: at £39.95 I paused. Then I worked out it was on my shoulders every single evening of the warm spell — price per wear, it's beating everything else I own. It's half the usual £80, and I'd checked I could send it back if it disappointed — you can, within a fortnight, and the delivery's free. It comes in four soft colours and in sizes UK 8/10 all the way to 22/24.

If your evenings outside also end with someone popping in for a jacket, do treat yourself to a look. The Lunaviera is rated 4.6 out of 5 by more than 230 women, it's £39.95 in the sale instead of £80 — half price — and the middle sizes always seem to go first.