Old School

Good day to you lovely bloggers. I notice I have been remiss in my regular blogging over the past couple of weeks but I have been writing all the same. Not however, in the digital medium. I have found over the past couple of weeks that I really enjoy writing in notebooks with a pencil and paper.

Paper, pencil and sharpener. That's how I roll, yo. 

Don't get me wrong, I can type at quite a pace but I find the writing comes just that little bit easier. Also, it gives me an opportunity to indulge myself in the stationery section of shops. Now this may sound a bit weird, but I love, love (I'll say it thrice), love pencils. I love the way they feel in the hand and the dull scratch and scrape across the paper. I love the sound of writing with a pencil and the maintenance of sharpening. Writing seems much more satisfying to me when you do it with a pencil. Also a fountain pen too, but you can't correct your mistakes with a fountain pen with a rubber. Now I know that a few of my friends across the water in America will be snickering a little at the mention of correcting mistakes with a rubber. I know there are many jokes there. It's what you call an eraser over there....

This may be something to do with my age, but when I went to junior school (age 8 - 11), handwriting was a big deal. You were given a cheap biro with which to write with and learn to write italics. Then, once the teacher had decided your writing was neat enough, you graduated to a Berol Handwriting Pen which was essentially the middle management of handwriting. You had arrived, then all you wanted to do was to achieve the fountain pen. You wanted the corner office and a secretary you could buzz in to do shorthand. The pen in that pic looked a bit like the one we had, but think mid eighties Wales, rain and schools run badly by a Conservative government. They weren't as glamorous as that pic, but all the same it was the pinnacle of achievement at school. You had a fountain pen if your writing was good enough which led in turn to calligraphy work. I wasn't that good, but I do have a very agreeable hand when I try hard.

A friend in work came over with a note I had plonked on his screen with a message about a missed call. "Why did you write a note?" he asked genuinely. "You could have sent an email."

My mind boggled momentarily. He didn't see the point of actual writing and that makes me a little bit sad.

"Nice writing though," he said looking at the note while walking away. "wish I could do that."

I leave you with a question though. Am I alone in this? Do any of you prefer writing with pen and paper before committing it to your word processing programme of choice?

Rock on,

W.