It was a good week for deliveries, and I received both of the items which I’d determined to be essential in my push to slenderise my handbag.

The first delivery came on Tuesday from The Stamford Notebook Company and included the teeny-tiny 6-month diary which I moved into immediately. I’ve been using this for pretty much a complete week which is enough time to discover the disadvantages, but not enough to decide whether I can overcome my natural resistance. So far, I’ll say that I miss the space to have a more general task list and the notes section only allows the briefest of inspirational quotes. Then again, there is space to put in the important stuff and even to add a little decor to jolly things along. Plus, it fits perfectly inside my wallet which makes for a very compact carry. The Filofax stickers look exactly right on this size of paper where they look a little lost on an A5 page, so that’s a bonus.

I had already decided to stick with one main ink colour in my diary and I think that will help to keep this looking less cluttered. Important days and my horoscope icons are picked out in Electric Pink but the main colour is J Herbin Vert de Gris. I somewhat blotted my copy-book this first week by adding in an item with my work pen which is filled with Gulf Blue, but at least it’s in the same family so blends in okay.

Speaking of blotting, one thing I am struggling with is keeping the blotting paper in place. This was never a problem with the A5 book: open or closed, it stayed where I put it. In this pocket diary, the trimmed sheet of blotchy is anywhere but where I want it to be. There will be a solution, I’m sure, it just needs a bit of a think.

The mini glasses didn’t arrive until Friday so I didn’t get a chance to try them out as part of my workday carry, but I did take them into town on Saturday and they were fine. I already knew that generic reading glasses are okay for short periods of time, but they are no substitute for my prescription glasses. This compact pair in their sleek metal case allow me to read my phone, shopping list, ingredients etc, but I’m not sure I’d want to do any long-term reading with them. But they are easy to carry and they are blue, so that’s two wins straight away.

Here we can see how the two options compare and the new items are definitely saving a good amount of space. I used my flat cross-body bag this week at work in conjunction with my lovely red briefcase and my lunch bag. It was comfortable to carry, particularly from Wednesday when I had the tiny diary. Time will tell whether I will continue with the three bags, or use a bag that will allow me to carry my lunch and “me” things together so that I just have that and the briefcase.

Of course, it’s too early to tell whether this is helping my shoulder, but it appears to be more manageable whilst still feeling like “me”. Whilst the whole exercise has been prompted by me feeling a bit creaky, the joyous colours in my bags and glasses keeps me feeling less than my age. That said, the black pen case and diary cover are a little outside my preferred palette. Might have to rectify that somehow.