Today’s staycation adventure was to Dundee to visit the Master Animator.

I am reading about the early years of the National Socialist government establishing itself in Germany and some aspects remind me of current world affairs.

Staycation holiday visit to the art gallery to see some favourites. William Charles Bethune looks like he could have been a bit of a brute. Always good to revisit Margaritta Macdonald too.

St Nicholas raising the salted dead children back to life was a new disturbing discovery for me.

Update my ‘now’ page.

Today I am grateful for being home with my family, returning to them after a night away hospital, with my salivary gland quantity now reduced by one.

Any stationery nerds know if any of the MD-Product designs will be available outside Japan? Specifically interested in UK but maybe Europe.

Tokyo Express by Seichō Matsumoto. I love these covers!

I have no facial hair for the first in AT LEAST 10 years and I do not recognise this face!

A fountain pen filling disaster with red ink. I look like Sweeney Todd! The kitchen resembles the barber shop too.

I think I’ve surprised myself by finding a vodka Negroni (made with good vodka natch) to be better than a gin Negroni.

In inky news, I’m surprised just how wet Iroshizuku Ku-Jaku (Teal) ink is. I had to move it down to a really fine fountain pen and it still takes the nib up a width.

Reflecting on the All Employee Brief I was at today, it’s interesting just how much the tie has disappeared from the UK business dress code for men.

A couple of years ago I was excited to learn about the DSKY wristwatch but I wonder if it’s even still in development now.

I’m re-reading ‘The Wound and The Gift’, Ron Ferguson’s biography of George Mackay Brown’s journey to Catholicism. This time I am particularly moved by the tragic life of Stella Cartwright the do-called muse of Rose Street.

Recommended by my wife; a lovely little meditation on old age and approaching death slowly.

Daughter no. 2 and I were having a playful chat on the lines of “what’s the first thing you would do if you suddenly changed gender?”

After the inevitable first answers, I found it poignant she said ‘go out for a walk after dark, just because I can.’

Over on the big blog. Dirty grooves and Lesbian Bed Death.

(Which may be the strangest title on that blog!)

Love this find from a secondhand shop on Leith Walk today.

“My dear, will you still love me if I grow old and lose my quiff?”

Oh blessed payday - the first of 2026!

In my fountain pen world, I’m about to finish a bottle of Montblanc Turquoise which is discontinued and a huge favourite of mine.

The only benefit is that I won’t have to learn how to spell ‘turquoise’ because that has always eluded me.

My blocked salivary gland is back with a vengeance. 😫 But I now have a date for an operation to fix it, but it would mean not going on holiday with my wife in February. And I don’t know what to do because there’s no perfect answer!

Farage on Jenrick in August 2025: “This man is not to be trusted, his party aren’t…”

Good to see nothing has changed!

I really enjoyed reading Ian Dunt’s 2026 resolutions especially on fiction and the horror of ‘small plates’ dining. Although I read a lot of non-fiction, I’ve learned more from fiction and it has changed me more.

We saw this while out for a stroll and I’m very impressed.

Updated my ‘now page’.