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There was a time when I struggled to find a pen. That's a sorry state of affairs if one considers oneself a poet. Now that I don't, I have plenty. I've purloined them at any opportunity and now bedroom, bathroom, computer desk and front room all have them.
I also save envelopes to make notes on about books, in the unlikely event of a poem or lists for lists's sake. They, too, arrive more quickly than I can use them and had to be sorted into a more orderly pile in those glorious, indolent days between Christmas and New Year when only fools, horses and essential services work.
Charities, events and advertisers give out pens and I'll have them. I have a handful garnered from Corals hospitality at Ascot and Sandown. They look nice and shiny in their blue livery but are no good at writing uphill from a supine position. There's the red one from Chichester Cathedral and a black one from Cheltenham racecourse when I went on a mad spending spree having told the bookies which horses would win. But the best are the pair of Parker pens, pictured.
The one above may or may not be the one from The Times at the Cheltenham Literature Festival a few years ago. If it is, the writing wore off very suddenly. I lost it while staying with my sister, she said that one wasn't theirs so it must be mine. I've never been completely convinced but it's a nice thing, as evidenced by appreciative comments from the fairly-famous poet who signed one of her books for me with it at Cheltenham on a later visit.
The other is thoughtfully inscribed and was provided with my birthday cake last year so that I could fill in the crossword on the cake, had I been able. It is a gorgeous thing and sits between thumb and forefinger 'snug as a gun', in Heaney's compact, unnerving phrase. I was surprised to find it is the same size as the other because it doesn't feel like it.
However, I had been unable to compare their relative size for some time. For a while I hadn't cared to and then, when I wanted to, I couldn't find the first one. The point was, the birthday one writes blue and The Times crossword is so unsightly begun in one colour and completed (if at all) in another. The same with one's diary. I'd prefer it all in black, not some concerts in blue, some race meetings in black and the dinner dates with French actresses in whatever colour came to hand in the heat of the moment.
Earlier this year I had ordered a black refill for the top one and thought there was a pack of two. Unable to find the spare, in the same way that I can't these days always find the book or CD I want but then order a book I already have, like Edna Longley's on Louis MacNeice, I looked up on Amazon past orders and found there had been two. Not that that told me where the spare was.
So I thought I'd swap the black from the Times pen into the birthday pen once it turned up. And, given those glorious free days, I did have time to find it. Yes, you're ahead of me if you've stayed with it this far. It was down the back of the settee, along with £14 in pound and two-pound coins. What a day that was.
So now the birthday pen writes black and so will The Times pen, if it is The Times pen and if the spare black refill ever eventually shows up.
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Meanwhile, the space on the front room wall hasn't been worrying me at all but I've been aware I could have another picture. Maggi Hambling and Chagall were candidates but nothing suitable in my parsimonious price range was available. Vermeer, Gwen John and Walter Sickert are already putting in fine work but, first up on the record buying for 2020 is the Stephen Hough Brahms with this quiet, completely wonderful Hammershoi on the cover. So, that's it. Found it, ordered. Now all we need is a frame to accommodate it. That might be the hard part.
