A letter from a reader

At 67, I spent my summer afternoons indoors between noon and five

I have never written anything like this before, and I want to say at the start that I am not a writer and I am not in the habit of telling other women what to wear.

But three different women asked me about a dress at the village fete, and I have now explained it enough times that it seemed easier to write it down properly.

The moment I want to tell you about happened a few weeks earlier, on a hot Saturday. My daughter was taking the children to the park, and I stood at the kitchen window with the fan on, waving them off, and my grandson turned round at the gate and shouted it.

You are not coming, Grandma?

No, I was not coming. It was half past one, it was twenty-nine degrees, and I had quietly become a woman who does not go out between noon and five in July. I told him it was too hot, but that was not really the truth. The truth was that I owned nothing worth being out in.

How summer gets taken off you

Nobody decides to spend July behind the curtains. It happens one wardrobe defeat at a time.

Everything sold as a summer dress is either cut for a twenty-year-old, all straps and thigh, or made of some heavy material that sticks to your back before you reach the postbox. So you go out in the morning, you do what needs doing, and you surrender the afternoon.

I had started planning my whole day around the heat, and I never once thought to blame the clothes. I thought that was simply what being 67 in a hot summer was.

Then Barbara turned up cool as anything

I ran into Barbara at the garden centre on a scorching Tuesday, and while I stood there glowing like a radiator, she looked fresh as a daisy in a long white dress covered in wildflowers, sunflowers and lavender and little pink roses.

It is from Manchester Boutique, a small British boutique that has been quietly dressing women our age for a few years now, and it is called the Jutta. I will admit my first thought was, a long white dress, at my age. My second thought was that Barbara is two years older than me and looked wonderful. I ordered it that evening.

It is the lightest thing in my wardrobe by some distance. The cut is loose so the air actually moves through it, it covers me to the ankle without a hint of weight, and the short sleeves keep it easy. And it comes out of the wardrobe ready to go, no ironing performance, no fussing, on over the head and out the door.

What happened at the fete

Its first proper outing was the village fete. Two o'clock until six, full sun, the works.

Three women asked me where it was from. One of them was Ann, who I have known since our children were at primary school and who has never once commented on anything I have worn. She asked before I had even bought my raffle tickets.

But the part I keep coming back to is that I stayed. All afternoon, out in it, nothing sticking to me, while half the women there fanned themselves with the programme. I had forgotten what it was like to be outside on a hot day and simply enjoy it.

Since then it has done the garden, the shops, a long walk along the canal at three in the afternoon, and my grandson's sports day. The fan is still in the kitchen. I am not.

Three things I have learned since

One. Weight was the whole problem. It was never the sun that kept me in, it was heavy clothes in the sun. A dress that floats instead of sticking gives you the afternoon back, which sounds dramatic until it happens to you.

Two. It looks after itself. It goes in the washing machine, comes out fine, and does not need standing over with an iron. A dress that needs no looking after is a dress you actually wear.

Three. The sizing is honest. It runs from a UK 8/10 to an 18/20, the same easy cut the whole way up. They do other colourways as well, but the white wildflower one is the one people stop you about.

About the price

I want to be straightforward about this, because it was the thing that made me suspicious.

The Jutta is £36.95. It was £74.00.

My first thought, honestly, was that there had to be a catch, because you can pay more than that on the high street for a summer dress that will stick to you by August.

There is no catch that I have found. They are a small boutique selling directly, so there is no department store taking a cut in the middle, and they run a summer sale to shift the season's stock before it turns.

I did what I imagine you are doing now and went and read the reviews before I ordered. Just over three hundred of them, sitting at 4.2 stars. Not the suspiciously perfect five you see on some websites, which if I am honest made me trust it rather more. One woman had written, "Wore it on the hottest day of the year and stayed cool from morning to night. It floats along with you and I have had so many compliments." That was the one that decided it for me.

What I would tell you if we were friends

If you and I were sat in the shade with a cold drink and you asked me, this is what I would say.

Count how many summer afternoons you have already spent indoors this year. If the number annoys you, it is not the weather and it is not your age. It is that nobody has sold you anything worth being out in, and that is fixable for less than forty pounds.

Not because a dress changes anything. It does not. But an English summer is short, and I had been giving half of every hot day away without noticing. I would rather you did not.

Two practical things. The sale is on now, and the middle sizes are the ones that go first. And once the summer stock has gone, it is gone until next year.

Between noon and five, you will find me in the garden now.

Maggie