I have four beautiful pristine Clairefontaine A4 properly ruled notebooks! As a bonus I picked up one of Clairefontaine’s 17×22 cm Forets vertes ‘Forever’ notebooks made of completely recycled paper. It doesn’t have the brushed vellum finish but it’s the smoothest recycled paper I’ve seen, and I want to see how my fountain pens work on it. Because, you see, they do an A4 Forets vertes cahier too and although Clairefontaine specifically uses pulps originated from certified ecologically managed forests, recycled paper is just that much more responsible. I managed to rein in my automatic desire to buy pens just because I’d bought new notebooks.

I am such a papeterie geek.

Let’s see, what else? We saw the film adaptation of The Spiderwick Chronicles last night, and I was disappointed. If I’d seen the film first then gone to the books I would have been thrilled, because I’d have gone from a coherent story to a much more complex and rich plot that unfolded at a more measured pace, but as it is I did it the other way around and felt the story was rushed. I was impressed at the characterization of just about everyone (except the main villain — can we say ‘cipher’?), loved the CG work and the general design, but the story just felt… well, it’s hard to describe, because the scriptwriters did a good job of taking key plot points and constructing a story that took place within twenty-four hours. It just lost a lot of the story’s impact and scope.

We went out this morning so HRH could order shoes for himself, and I found a pair of shoes to dye green. Now, two years ago I decided I wanted red shoes, and searched long and hard before I found a pair that was right. This year I decided I wanted green shoes. Can I find any? Of course not. But everywhere there are red shoes I’d love to wear. (I have to keep reminding myself that I own a pair already that don’t get worn very frequently and I do not need another pair.) Not long ago I realized that I could buy a white or bone-coloured pair that I liked and get them dyed green. Today, even though I wasn’t looking, I found a nice pair of loafer/pump type things with a nice stacked heel in a light tan colour that fit me like a glove (always surprising), and I bought them. Nice bonus: on sale! Now I need to find a reliable local cordonnerie who will dye them dark green for me.