I went to a demonstration across the street from the American Embassy. The families of the hostages asked Jake Sullivan to pressure our current government to sign an agreement to release the hostages and end the fighting in Gaza. There was significant police presence and I was a bit worried to get too close to the centre of the action as they seemed jumpy, but I did sketch the demonstrators (Lamy fountain pen and Diamine Marley ink on a Cass Art sketchbook).

I bought a Model 03 modified colour prototype from the Franklin-Christoph online pen show. This brings up the total number of fountain pens I purchased this year to three – which is one of the lowest it’s been since I started using fountain pens. The other two pens are the Fountain EDC from Big iDesign, which I got through kickstarter, and a Leonardo Momento Zero Grande 2.0 Galattica Universe. I’ve been buying fewer and fewer fountain pens over the years, and I expect next year won’t change that trend. The reason is twofold: all the vintage dealers I used to buy from have retired or died, and I already have enough modern pens to satisfy all of my needs and curiosities.

Inkvent has been a lot of work, and I haven’t been able to get much of a buffer going on. I basically write each review on the day it’s published, with the writing samples and the sketch being done a day or two beforehand at most. It’s so time consuming that I haven’t been able to find enough time to create a posting buffer this year.

It’s the middle of December and I’ve started planning for the next “13 week year” or quarter, and in this case also moving into a new notebook. I’ll probably write a separate post about setting up my new planning notebook and migrating from my old one, but for now I’ll say that starting a notebook with a few lists is a great way to get over the “first blank page” fright.

Have a great and peaceful week!