I never intended to go to the Spring Pen Show in London, but now the date is here and I’m rather sad that I didn’t. Perhaps it’s because the weather is so glorious and spring-like. Perhaps it’s because I wandered down to the train station early this morning, and as I looked along the tracks heading off into the hazy sunshine I had that feeling you get at the start of an adventure. Mind you, the bus replacement service looked rather less inspirational.
So, not at the pen show I decided instead to put a little bit of spring in my pens. January and February saw me leaning very heavily into the Scribo Notturno Viola, an ink colour I couldn’t get enough of. An ink colour, indeed, that I could imagine using entirely monogamously if the need arose. The need not having arisen, I have also been using Graf von Faber-Castell’s India Red in my Kaweco Al-Sport. These two colours have been enough for me since mid-December. I have wondered on several occasions whether the dark purple might cease to thrill me once the sun returned to the northern hemisphere and the clouds toddled off somewhere else. It might, I thought, be a touch sombre, too flat, too wintery.
In the event, it was the red ink which had to go. I started to crave the combination of deep purple and honey-gold and there was Diamine’s good old Honey Burst, waiting patiently for its moment to shine. I chose my Cross Beverly pen for this ink on account of the good medium nib. Some have proffered the opinion that the Beverly is a pen with rather a lot of bling, and they wouldn’t be wrong. I like to think it’s a good bling, but it might be a little over-the-top. Still, if we can’t be over-the-top as we head towards spring, when can we be?
See how prettily the purple and gold sit together? This is one of nature’s classic colour combinations and I shall be channelling drifts of crocus as I write each day. I hope this will boost my enjoyment because I am struggling with the Leuchtturm 1917 notebook that I’m currently using to write my journal. I bought it at the Autumn Pen Show and I made the mistake of choosing blank pages instead of my preferred lined ones. As this is the version with 120gsm paper, it doesn’t really work to place a lined guide-sheet underneath. I do not like writing on blank paper, so it is strange that two of the three bound notebooks I bought last year had blank pages. I clearly suffered some variety of mild delusional episode each time I stopped to look at paper. My photo above shows the inks on the first of my mistakenly blank notebooks. This is the Midori MD which I had dedicated as a playspace for pens and inks before I made my second mistake. I feel silly saying this, but I much prefer the paper in my cheap Silvine “education quality” exercise books to either of these notebooks. Still, I am sure I’ll feel a warm sense of accomplishment when both of them are finished.
I’ve done a little work on my desk over recent weeks, clearing out the inside and re-thinking the desktop. A lot of clutter had to go, such as the wired keyboard I bought for my occasional “work at home” setup before I realised that it was easier to just use the laptop keyboard. To make things a little nicer to look at, I bought an organiser which now houses my frequently-used items. Forced into streamlining my lighting, I dug out an LED lamp I’ve had for a few years and sometimes use for photography. This is a bit of a “make do until I find something better” option, which probably means it will still be here in ten years. Whilst it isn’t exactly what I want, it has one advantage over every other lamp I’ve looked at in recent years – you turn it on at the base of the actual light instead of having a switch at an inconvenient point 18 inches along the electric cord. I really cannot understand how this has become the standard for table and desk lamps. Sometimes I end up wrapping the cord round and round the lamp base until the switch is somewhere reachable, and then sellotape it in place,. Alternatively, I simply moan every time I turn the lamp on and off as I have to reach somewhere inconvenient to locate the switch.
Perhaps the biggest, or indeed smallest, change I have made is to swap out my old LaCie external disk drive for a spiffing new “portable” version. I’ve been on the brink of making this change for years as the old drive took up too much space, needed a power cable to work, and a USB-A to USB-C adapter. It was just too much fuss to bother with on anything like a regular basis. The new one takes almost no space at all, has built-in USB-C connection, and is powered by that one cable. It’s like I’ve finally joined the modern world.
As you can see, I’m currently reading Cal Newport’s “Digital Minimalism”. It seems the perfect time to think about being more intentional about my computer/phone usage now that I am contemplating my final year in mainstream employment. My work is entirely computer-based, with lots of Teams meetings because people work away from the office. We hot-desk, which I loathe, and every desk is equipped with two monitors, wired keyboard, wired mouse, and a dock to which I attach my laptop. There’s barely room for a cuppa there’s so much tech crowding around, and it adds up to a big, fat burden. Now we have to add AI into the mix. I will admit that is the element that’s tipping me towards a more considered approach to my digital life. Away from work, I am becoming increasingly unsure if I’m looking at content created by people thinking imaginatively, or content created by people using technology to replace their own abilities.
Again, it is weariness which sits at the heart of the matter. I am weary of trying to track down quality information on an internet which increasingly wants to present me with dross. I am weary of frittering away my time on things which don’t improve my experience of life. Tired of speeding along the information superhighway and missing the hills and the hedges and the drystone walls of the real world. I’m not convinced that a radically different approach is going to fit with my current life, but if I start thinking about it now, I can be ready to make changes when they do fit into my life. I have no doubt there will be some small improvements that I can make along the way between here and there.
Pam Alison Knits 