Real stories · The jacket that beat the thermostat

I turned the heating down a degree — and put this on instead

A jacket that lets you turn the thermostat down a degree — that's what this one has quietly become in our house. I'm 67, and every winter the same little war breaks out: I'm cold, Malcolm hovers by the thermostat like a museum guard, and the heating bill arrives each month with a fresh sense of humour.

What I wanted was warmth I could put ON, rather than warmth I had to pay for by the hour.

The answer was already hanging in my own wardrobe: the Melvaris, from a British label called York Boutique — a floral jacket with a hood, lined from collar to hem in thick, soft teddy fleece. I'd bought it for walks. It turns out its real career is indoors.

The teddy lining is the whole trick. It holds your own warmth in the way a duvet does — which is why, with it on over a jumper, the room can sit a degree cooler and I genuinely don't notice — and because the outside is a proper floral jacket rather than a dressing gown, I can answer the door in it without apologising. Mine is the white floral; there's dark blue and orange as well.

Thick teddy fleece from collar to hem, with a proper jacket on the outside — which is why the thermostat now stays a degree lower, and why answering the door needs no apology.

It's £39.95 in the sale, half the usual £80 — and I've done the sums Malcolm-style: a degree off the thermostat, morning to bedtime, pays that back over a winter and then starts earning. A fortnight to send it back and free delivery, though ours is now on its second career and going nowhere.

It has since done three weeks of cold mornings — breakfast, crosswords, one long afternoon with Winnie asleep on my lap refusing to move — and when Sandra called in for coffee she looked at it, looked at the radiator, and said 'you've cracked it, haven't you.' I have. Wearably.

If your thermostat is also under armed guard, do have a look. The Melvaris is rated 4.7 out of 5 by more than 260 women, it comes in three colourways, in UK sizes 8/10 all the way to 24 — and at half price the florals go first.