If you've ever contemplated upping sticks and moving to Italy, or what life may be like inside a Milanese fashion brand, take a peek at Behind The Seams - a daily blog about life working for Mr.D & Mr.G.

Another day in the office and due to extensive note-taking I was in need of a new notebook. Not a life-threatening crisis worthy of Angelina Jolie you may immediately reply - however turns out there is more than meets the eye in this office.

To give you a little background to my tale, on the majority of people's very clean white desks here are nonchantly placed Dolce & Gabbana notepads (even though I know for a fact some people have distributed them as Christmas presents to eager friends and relatives). I had assumed that as everyone else had one, they were therefore were available for all. How wrong I was.

Off I strutted (new heels, credit crunch, what credit crunch??) to find my way to the stationary cupboard (curiously located next to payroll). Once there I failed to spot any notebooks and so in my best Italian decided to ask. Now before we go anything I'll need to explain a little bit more about requests in Italian so you don't form a bad impression of our lovely payroll lady.

In England, when we ask for something, the answer tends to "let me see" and then invariably nothing much happens. In Italy when one asks for something the answer is always a firm "no". Then what follows is by a lot of sighing, waving of arms (exhausted/stressful type gestures, so you are very aware you are causing anguish to all concered) followed by a flurry of activity. When I first moved here I assumed "no" meant no, when in fact it actually means, "hold on, let me get myself organised and then I'll spend the next two hours helping you to the point of distraction where upon English people get incredibly embarrassed."

Amyway, so I asked, and of course the answer was no - followed by lots of rushing around trying to find one - even offering to interrupt a meeting with the head of retail in an adjoining room(no!!!! I believe I screamed frantically) before finally pausing to explain what the problem really was.

"The notebooks are handed out personally" said the flustered looking payroll lady.

"Don't worry, I'll come back another time", at this point extremely concerned the poor lady was about to call Mr. G himself in order to locate one.

"No, the thing is..."

"If you've run out I can use something else...", wondering why I hadn't opted for a moleskin in the first place??

"No, the thing is they are personally distributed by Mr. G's staff."

I nodded.

The lovely payroll lady understood immediately what this meant and handed me some Dolce & Gabbana pencils in a very kind gesture akin to a runner-up prize.

If I'm not EVEN on Mr.G's notebook list it would seem my muse status is further than I'd thought...

Read Behind The Seams from the beginning and discover who she is by clicking on the following link www.swide.com

Scribble at behindtheseamsgirl@gmail.com