Great girls' mac

Some years ago, I bought this great mac from Mini Mode the now (almost, as of the end of this month) defunct brand you could only get at Boots. It has a hood, which you can't see, and was pretty hydrophobic and it looked good with most things. I always got asked where it was from. I loved this mac. My daughter loved it (although if I remember rightly, like most things, she had to be coerced to wear it). My partner/her father loved it. Even my parents thought it was pretty cool, although not actually pretty cool as that would reinforce their idea that I don't dress my daughter warmly enough, ever. It had done many years sterling service, but even if Mini Mode were still going, it only ever went up to age six and my daughter is nearly seven. So the hunt for a new mac was on.

The lovely mac from Mini Mode which did gave many years of service through snow 'n' wind 'n' rain.

Nice, stylish girls' macs are not easy to find. They're either too cutesy, too pink, too branded or just plain rubbish. My mother, when not feeding my daughter two Bahlsen plain chocolate biscuits sandwiched together, had, she said, spied a really nice mac in Zara but hadn't bought it yet.

Last week my eldest and I went to London. She came with me whilst I went on my appointments, aka going to get my hair done at John Freida and meeting up with the totally fabulous perfumier Roja Dove at the reading rooms in Claridges (ha! you thought my life was all making bread in Suffolk, wrong, wrong, wrong!). Because we then decided, quite ad hoc, to stay the night in London I decided to go shopping with her for school shoes at Johnny Lou Lou's. As we were leaving there I spied Next.

Now, lots of my friends seem to find nice children's clothes in Next. I never do. But that's mostly cos I don't really look and I don't order from the catalogue because last time I did they opened a credit account for me and started sending me scary statements that made me fearful and it took me ages to cancel it.

Anyway. I thought I'd give it a go by actually going in there and looking around properly. And I found what I think is a great little mac/trenchcoat for girls. It's camel coloured (so, like, bang on trend for this season if you care about such things, which I really do not), has little details like slightly puffed sleeves and a dotty lining. It's really cute, and looks well made and isn't too expensive.

It's 100% cotton and is billed as 'shower proof' and is of course washable at 40 degrees.

"Stone Trench Coat for girls" by Next, in sizes to fit ages 3-16 and costs  from £21-£27.