I love wearing grey: blending, cloaking, merging. Subtle, veiling, yet a window to life beneath. Both disguising and revealing. A foil for the complex colours of the soul.

Sultry, smudgy charcoal, wispy, misty smoke. Sharp-glint granite, feather-down nestle dove grey, iridescent mussel pearl. Gauzy-gossamer and ethereal ashes of roses. Addictively, I’m drawn to it. My wardrobe is full of shades of grey; I collect the colour in all its varying hues.

My comfort blanket, handed down from my great grandmother and miraculously free from moth damage, is made from the softest, snuggliest cashmere – a smoky charcoal one side and soft cloud the other. To wrap oneself in its comforting soothingness is pure bliss. And then there’s grey jumper.

I bought grey jumper about twenty years ago for no other reason than it was another grey jumper. Overlarge, a simple block square design, perfect to throw on over anything. It became a staple, not only to me but to the boys too…after a days surfing ‘throw us a jumper mum’; coming in from a cold wet windy day ‘where’s grey jumper?’. A hormonal downer, a rejection or some deep thought-thinking – you’d find them curled up in it. Walking, farming, gardening; holidaying, travelling, drifting…grey jumper would be found stuffed in some nook or cranny.

Over the years it’s often found itself in the pile of clothes to be given away, recycled or bundled to the charity shops only to be snatched back. And every year at the beginning of lambing and calving I find myself rooting around in the bottom of the cupboard. With a contented sigh I pull grey jumper out, slip the well-worn fabric over my head, ready to face whatever lies ahead, secure in my other skin.