Clay Pigeon Shooting, Fashion Week and Other Things Badly Noted Down

On paper diaries, female friendship, Fashion Week and all the things that, for some reason, felt important enough to write down this week.

I opened my diary looking for the notes I'd made this week to include in the newsletter and realized they rather accurately reflect the general chaos of my days. I have a certain talent for always finding something to do.

This week's list reads:

A couple of things should probably be clarified.

By diary, I mean one of those paper ones our mothers used when we were little. Or at least, mine did. She has since moved on to the iPhone calendar and I, apparently, have moved backwards to paper.

Absurd, I know.

Even more absurd is the fact that I have three. Which somewhat defeats the organizational purpose of having a diary and requires rather capacious tote bags.

So far, it's working. More or less.

Second clarification: the last item belonged to the considerably less interesting category of notes titled “things to do this week.” Dry cleaner's, vegetable shopping, butcher's and all those very real administrative matters of adult life. Since my brother and I both have the memory of a goldfish, remind Giammy to go to the dry cleaner's is, unfortunately, entirely necessary.

Now, you may be wondering what clay pigeon shooting, female friendship, Fashion Week and American Pie have to do with one another.

Absolutely nothing.

On Sunday, I tried clay pigeon shooting for the first time and came away convinced I'd found exactly how I intend to spend my Sundays this autumn: the countryside, friends and a probably unnecessary amount of competition.

Sounds like an excellent plan to me.

Milan, meanwhile, is ready for Fashion Week.

I most certainly am not.

It's that time of year when finding a taxi becomes a minor achievement, let's not even talk about parking, and having a coffee in the centre of town requires the kind of planning usually reserved for international travel.

Despite working in fashion, I'll probably still be deciding what to wear on Wednesday morning sometime around Tuesday night. Less of a prediction at this point, more of a tradition.

Among the things I'd also like to manage this week is seeing my friends.

Which brings us to item number two: female friendship.

I can't remember exactly what happened when I wrote it down. I always assume that future Martina will know perfectly well what I meant.

Future Martina, naturally, has absolutely no idea.

I do know why I keep coming back to it, though.

The older I get, the more I realise how rare it is to find people around whom we don't have to be particularly interesting.

The friends we can be tired, indecisive and repetitive with. The ones who listen to a four-minute voice note as though it contained information of national importance and can tell us we're beautiful and, five minutes later, that the dress is absolutely not.

It's a rather rare luxury.

Then there's American Pie.

Not the film. The song.

And while we're here, my recommendations for the week: American Pie in your headphones and Practical Magic for a rewatch. Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman are so good that, frankly, no further explanation is required.

Moving on to considerably more important matters.

Collection launch date.

Which, sitting between American Pie and a reminder about the dry cleaner's, almost makes it seem like a perfectly normal thing.

It isn't.

There are things we write in our diaries because we're afraid we'll forget them, and others we probably couldn't forget even if we tried.

This one very definitely belongs to the second category.

Over the past few months, October 6th has been written on calendars, presentations, messages, phone notes and, naturally, in at least two of my three diaries.

And now I can finally write it here too.

The Sloane will be online on October 6th.

There's something strange about seeing a date next to something that, until not very long ago, existed mostly in my head.

Suddenly, it's no longer “in a few months,” “this autumn” or the ever-reassuring “there's still time.”

It's October 6th.

And it's very close.

So, for now, I have a Fashion Week I'm not ready for, a new hobby, friends to see, a collection that's about to launch and someone who still needs to go to the dry cleaner's.

Come to think of it, my diary summed up the week rather well.

Now I just need to remember which of the three has tomorrow's plans in it.

Next week, we'll also talk about autumn wardrobes. And probably beauty, now that our tans are slowly abandoning us and that wonderful time of year is returning when concealer stops being optional.

Or at least, for me.

Noted!

Oh! And Giammy, for anyone wondering, is one of my two brothers.