I'm on my feet all day. By the evening my legs felt heavy, achy and utterly knackered — until my daughter talked me into the one thing I was sure wouldn't work.

By the time I get home and the kettle's on, they feel heavy and tired — that dull, dragging ache from the knee down. Some evenings my ankles look a bit puffy. I'd lower myself onto the sofa and not fancy getting up again.

I'd tried the usual bits. A footstool. Compression socks (itchy, and a right faff to get on). A hot bath when I had the energy. One of those vibrating foot gadgets that's now living at the back of a cupboard.

Nothing really stuck.

It sounded like one of those wellness fads. Crystals and nonsense. I told her not to waste her money.

She bought me one anyway. Bless her.

You know how your feet feel after you've walked barefoot on cool grass, or stood in the wet sand at the seaside? That settled, calm feeling. A bit grounded, for want of a better word.

A grounding mat is simply a way to get a little of that indoors — shoes off, feet resting on the mat, while you sit.

There's no electricity running through it. None. It doesn't buzz or tingle. It just connects, through the earth pin of an ordinary plug, to the ground beneath your house — the very same ground you'd be standing on out in the garden.

That's all it is.

And I'll be straight with you, because I can't abide being sold to: I'm not going to tell you it's magic. The science is still catching up, and anyone promising miracles is having you on.

What I can tell you is how it feels.

Tea in hand, telly on, shoes off, feet on the mat. Fifteen minutes.

I didn't expect a thing. But by the end of the programme, my legs felt… lighter. That heavy, dragging feeling had eased off. I felt calmer in myself, too — the way you do after a proper sit-down in the garden on a warm day.

I assumed it was a fluke. So I did it again the next night. And the night after that.

Feet up, mat down, kettle on. My husband's started pinching it, so we've ended up with one each.

It lives rolled up behind the sofa. Some days I pop it under the desk when I'm on the computer. No routine to keep up, nothing to charge, nothing to remember. You just sit.

The one I've got is called Solva.

It's a British company. When I had a question, a real person answered — in this country, during normal hours. That mattered to me. I'd read the horror stories about posting things back to warehouses abroad and never seeing your money again.

It came with the proper UK plug already in the box (some of them charge you extra for that, would you believe). It's built to last and covered for two years. And — this is the bit that won me over — you get sixty days to try it at home. If your evenings don't feel any better, you send it back and they refund you. No quibble.

That's a fair deal. You're not gambling.