I am disposing into the age at which I quietly lament the clothes that obtain left my life. I don’t necessarily have “favourites” but I do own a lot of “one-and-onlys” – that join of miraculous denim cutoffs that were somehow proper for work and play; the leather belt I found for a fiver in a understanding shop that has now been with me longer than a few of my worst mates; the perfect slouchy navy blouse that capacity for seating plays just so over skirts and trousers.

 Slowly, these matters are exiting my life, worn down by my unforgiving wear book. My mother once told me, with gentle concern, “You separate you don’t have to wear clothes until they’re rags, veracious?” I know I don’t, Mother, but what if I like to?

It’s been raining in New York, so much so that I invented a corny joke to an American stranger about “feeling disposed to I’m back home”. As the evening dark rushes to meet us earlier and earlier, submitting an autumnal chill, I have been keenly missing one filler in particular – a faux-leather jacket I bought cheaply many years behindhand. This is the first autumn in almost a decade when I force not slung it on for most of October and November. Its absence is discombobulating. It was a liberal, dark brown with contrasting black sleeves, and rate less than £30 in the New Look sale. It was more smart than its component colours would have you believe, warmer than its manmade construction should have allowed and sturdier than its price in the matter of would suggest. Basically it was perfect, so of course I wore it to dying. Its replacement is a reversible gold and black bomber that is assuredly not a one-and-only.

But it’ll do.