Real stories · The bag strangers smile at

Forty years of sensible black handbags — then I bought the one with the puppy on it

A bag that makes strangers smile at bus stops — that's what I carry now, and I'd forgotten a handbag was even allowed to do that. I've carried sensible black bags for forty years. Good bags. Invisible bags. Bags whose entire personality was 'closes properly'.

Then I saw this one, and I bought it the way you buy a bunch of tulips: entirely for the joy of it.

It's the Seravyn from a British label called York Boutique — a quilted bag with a little white puppy stitched into a flower meadow, the whole scene raised and textured like a piece of folk art you can carry. There are twelve designs: the puppy, sea turtles on a beach, a Highland cow, a cat, flowers.

And it turns out it's a proper bag underneath the art. Roomy lined interior, a zip that closes properly, pockets for the phone and the glasses case — which is why it took over the daily errands immediately instead of being saved for best. The art does the charming; the bag does the work.

A stitched, textured little artwork on a roomy, properly made bag — which is why I haven't had a quiet outing since it arrived.

It was £29.95 in the sale — half the usual £60 — and I did check I could send it back if it was flimsy in person: a fortnight, free delivery. It is not flimsy. It is the most commented-upon object I have ever owned.

The lady at the bus stop. The pharmacist. A complete stranger outside the bakery who crossed the road — crossed the ROAD — to ask where it was from. And at the café Sandra turned it around twice and declared she needed the Highland cow one for her sister, which has made a dent in my Christmas list too.

If your handbag has been sensible for forty years too, do have a look — and with the gift season coming, the dog people and the garden people on your list are suspiciously easy this year. The Seravyn is rated 4.7 out of 5 by more than 250 customers, comes in twelve designs — and at half price the puppy goes first.