Before I got my first computer in 1988, I used to spend hours writing letters to family and friends. During those times, I loved using different pens, inks and beautiful papers. I suppose that is why I still have lots of different paper – it is coming in handy these days with doing collage. Now that I’m doing calligraphy, my interest in my glass and fountain pens has also been renewed.

My favourite pens were always my glass ones (see picture above). The only problem was their fragility. When my son was a toddler, I accidentally left one out and he tried it. He pressed down on the paper and the nib snapped off. Yet again, I learned not to leave fragile items anywhere within his reach. He was as agile and speedy in finding forbidden items as is Lytton, our dog, in locating any food left on the kitchen counter.

I used to always have ink-stained fingers depending on what colour of ink happened to be my current favourite. Here is a picture of some of my inks. While I love using email and the internet, sometimes I wish that I still wrote letters by hand. Then I could use up all those postage stamps that I collected in the 1980s and have the added bonus of receiving handwritten letters in return.