I was idly perusing fountain pens the other day.
It’s been a while since I bought a new one. I don’t need a new fountain pen but a girl can window shop, right?
There’s something rather splendid about using real ink to write. It’s as if somehow the words mean more. That’s rubbish, obviously, but that’s how it feels sometimes.
I’m currently surgically attached to my trusty Scriveiner, which is the golden retrievers of fountain pens; friendly, reliable and eager.
It cost about fifty quid and writes like a dream, so you can imagine the shock when I stumbled across the Fulgor Nocturnus, by Tilbald.
Even though it sounds like a Harry Potter spell, the Fulgor Nocturnus is in fact a fountain pen on steroids, set with 945 black diamonds and 123 rubies.
It has a solid 18-carat gold nib and was created with ‘the divine Phi ratio in mind’.
I had to look that up and here’s what I found: The golden ratio, also known as the golden number, golden proportion or the divine proportion, is a ratio between two numbers that equals approximately 1.618. Usually written as the Greek letter phi, it is strongly associated with the Fibonacci sequence, a series of numbers wherein each number is added to the last.
So, there’s that.
But what was more eye-watering is that the pen sold at a charity auction in Shanghai, in 2020, for $8 million.
The word ‘fulgor’ means dazzling brilliance, and ‘nocturnus’ means occurring at night.
So it’s a brilliant night pen, then?
It had better be. For $8 million, I’d want it to not only be brilliant at any time of the day or night but refill itself, make my coffee and write a blockbuster.
Now, the reason I’ve been rambling on about this very expensive pen (that will not in any way affect any our lives any time soon) is classic deflection.
Today, I spent time with my best mate, and our other best mate, who lives in Sydney, Australia - and who we haven’t seen for six years.
It was an afternoon of laughter, magazine days memories, fashion, food, family updates, a walk by the sea in the (unseasonably warm) October sunshine, and all round good, fuzzy vibes.
I’m sitting here processing because I’m still feeling very emotional and not entirely sure where to put all of these wobbly feelings.
I don’t know if I’ll ever travel to Sydney to see Mel and her family. It’s a long way from Leigh-on-Sea and it’s not cheap, so this was a moment to be savoured as I doubt she’ll be back for a couple of years at least.
The three of us spent exactly five and a half hours together and it was glorious. It felt like we’d all had lunch together last week instead of six years ago. Conversation flowed, as did the wine. Joking. We’re all old now and can’t easily do (or want to do) lunchtime boozing. I had a berry smoothie!
We did, however, recreate a photo of the three of us from 26 years ago and fell about laughing at the results (I can’t post it here because I forgot to ask their permission and Mel is currently at the ABBA Hologram concert).
But that’s when you know it’s a good, solid friendship, and you don’t get many of those to the pound in this lifetime…
*stares at keyboard until tea goes cold*
I suppose what I’m saying is that I’ll take that over a Fulgor Nocturnus any day of the week.
That’s all from me today.
Lisa and Scriv x