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Pens and Flowers
30 August 2017 10:52 pmI went to Ryman's to buy a replacement filler/converter for my 'spare' Parker fountain pen (the one with the stainless-steel barrel that I had at school, and which I use for writing-while-walking, since it survives being dropped better than the coloured barrels do). Those cheap piston fillers are basically disposable items; sooner or later, the gasket perishes and/or pulls out of the rod, and you get left with a filler that goes up and down but doesn't suck up ink. Which is what had happened to this pen, not for the first time.
I was shocked to be told that Parker are no longer manufacturing fillers (despite continuing to sell bottled ink; how do they expect people to use the ink?) and that the shop had now sold out. I was directed to the neighbouring branch, six miles away, which apparently had one left 'in stock'. A week later, when I had business there and had cycled over, I paid a call on the second branch of Ryman's. They had sold their last filler the day before.( Read more... )
The Virginia stocks on my windowsill are coming to an end, and I've been weeding them out. I've also been removing the alyssum plants after the first flush of flowers has passed, since I now know that if you leave them they will happily flower from side-shoot after side-shoot and fill the entire tray from a single mature plant... and I had lots of seedlings!
The mysterious plant that looks like basil undoubtedly is basil. And the feathery things that have grown tall but still haven't flowered are suspiciously reminiscent of fennel -- could that packet of "Little Miss" assorted flower seed possibly have got mixed up with their packets of assorted herb seed?( more identifications )
I was shocked to be told that Parker are no longer manufacturing fillers (despite continuing to sell bottled ink; how do they expect people to use the ink?) and that the shop had now sold out. I was directed to the neighbouring branch, six miles away, which apparently had one left 'in stock'. A week later, when I had business there and had cycled over, I paid a call on the second branch of Ryman's. They had sold their last filler the day before.( Read more... )
The Virginia stocks on my windowsill are coming to an end, and I've been weeding them out. I've also been removing the alyssum plants after the first flush of flowers has passed, since I now know that if you leave them they will happily flower from side-shoot after side-shoot and fill the entire tray from a single mature plant... and I had lots of seedlings!
The mysterious plant that looks like basil undoubtedly is basil. And the feathery things that have grown tall but still haven't flowered are suspiciously reminiscent of fennel -- could that packet of "Little Miss" assorted flower seed possibly have got mixed up with their packets of assorted herb seed?( more identifications )