“Silver” and “Gold” Pen Club

[Mercian]

11 minutes ago, inkstainedruth said:

It might not be for a week or two (or even longer).

 

Oh, and I wish you luck in remembering to NOT walk on the surface of the new driveway until AFTER the installers have told you that it is finished, AND has had time to cure/settle/'oxidise on to the page', and that it is therefore safe for you to walk on it.

[Bo Bo Olson]

Mercian, it's nice you somehow remember exactly when what was bought.

 Everything I have but my P-75 from '70-71, was with in the last 15 years.

[Penguincollector]

  The dots and lines on your Morisson sound really different, @inkstainedruth. I would love to see that when you have time (wow, you’re busy- hope you can chill soon).

 

  Oh, I like your flighters, @Mercian!   Maybe I should try a purple ink in my Ciselé. . 

[inkstainedruth]

@Mercian Well they're supposed to be doing it over the course of about a week, and to  do it it stages, lengthwise (one side will include replacing the blocks along the edge, which are being held up with rebar stakes, but they may have to rip out the privet hedge in the process on that side of the driveway in the process -- not sure about the other side).  The blocks are supposed to be replaced with concrete sections on that side (basically curving the concrete up instead).  

In a pinch, we can walk up through the yard almost to the steps on the front porch from the street.

The really bad part of the driveway is by the street -- on one side, there were a few steps up from the sidewalk (we routinely have to tell people who park in our driveway to swing the other direction when they get to the bottom of the driveway so they don't wreck the undercarriage of their vehicle - and those are GOING AWAY! (Yay!). Although I think my husband might have some other use for the blocks themselves....  But the other problem is that one winter I had to park on the street because it was icy, and some guy walking up the street decided to be "helpful" -- and dumped 40 lbs. of ice melt on the bottom six feet of the driveway (mostly DESTROYING the concrete in the process... ).  

Of course we'll have to pay a lot of attention to alternate side parking on the two days of street sweeping (which I think runs till the end of the month).  And unlike SOME of the people (a lot of whom I think live in the apartment buildings on the main road we're off of) -- I want to make sure that we're parking LEGALLY (even thought we've been told that the cops don't ticket people who park on the wrong side of the street in general).  

Oh, and I just realized I need to double check something -- a couple of weeks ago, the people whose property backs onto the side yard (and hence the driveway) were having a tree taken out next to their shed (or at least removing a lot of the branches).   And I noticed that there's a really long limb sort of leaning over the edge of th property (and possibly over the driveway across from the side of the house).  And I have to make sure that the driveway people do what they said they'll do -- put in stuff to not block the basement windows on that side (and around stuff like the power strips for the corner lights and the like...).

[inkstainedruth]

oops -- dreaded double post....

[Mercian]

33 minutes ago, Bo Bo Olson said:

Mercian, it's nice you somehow remember exactly when what was bought.

 Everything I have but my P-75 from '70-71, was with in the last 15 years.

 

Oh, I don't remember (clearly) the dates when I bought my pens.
I was only citing their dates/places of manufacture.

 

That is really easy for post-1980 Parkers, because of the date codes the company stamped on them.
With my other pens I have to do a bit of digging-around, to see how far I can narrow-down their manufacturing dates based on a pen's various features.

I remember roughly when I bought the WH Smith pen, because it was one of the first ones that I bought when I was developing an increased interest in FPs.

To be honest, I suspect that I may have bought that one in 2011 or 2012 rather than in 2010, but it is identical (apart from its colour) to the black one that I had bought first.

It's a pity that its feed isn't great, because the thing fits into my hand really nicely.

[Mercian]

11 minutes ago, inkstainedruth said:

Well they're supposed to be doing it over the course of about a week, and to  do it it stages,

 

Wow.
The process sounds like much more of a 'project' than I had imagined!

It's a pity about your privet hedge. I hope that you have room to grow it back, and that it grows back reasonably rapidly.

I hope that it all goes well, and that your contractors don't encounter any problems with e.g. the rebars or with your neighbours' tree-limb (or its roots!).

And I definitely wish you all the best with the complicated shenanigans associated with the on-street parking!

[inkstainedruth]

Oh yeah.  The house is maybe not quite in the middle of the yard, front to back (the property is nearly an acre, which is pretty unusual for our town.  Most of the other houses have much smaller front yards (including the apartment buildings at the other end of the street) -- our next door neighbors' front yard is maybe ten feet from the sidewalk to their front porch, and the front side window in our living room is next to the back end of their back yard.  We had considered replacing the driveway all the way to the back of the property, where the barn is, but that would have been WAY too expensive, and to put in a turnaround behind the house would have cost an additional $17K US.....  So we're only having it go from the street to the back corner of the house on that side.  Not cheap, even then, but they got recommended by friends of ours (not sure if we're getting heating elements underneath the concrete like our friends did -- but they also have a MUCH smaller driveway and yard than we do.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Mercian]

@inkstainedruth - I just tried to send you a PM about your driveway, but got a message that said that you "cannot receive PMs".

Is your Inbox full?

[Chris1]

23 hours ago, Penguincollector said:

Thanks for sharing your lovely Cross pens with us, @Chris1! 

 

You're welcome; sorry the photos aren't great. I admit to being a great Townsend fan. I realised I have two other sterling silver ones, not one (as well as three in black lacquer and one chrome Medalist). All bar one broad are medium nibs; fine nibs show up the imperfections in my writing too much!

 

Most are inked and variously contain MB blue-black, Pelikan 4001 blue-black, Penman Sapphire, Diamine Imperial Purple, Diamine Monaco Red, Noodlers Air-Corps, Noodlers highlighter yellow (forget the name), Penman Ebony or Lamy Black as the fancy takes me. 

 

 

[Bo Bo Olson]

16 hours ago, Mercian said:

I was only citing their dates/places of manufacture.

Good, it lets a stone off my heart....He's been knowing what he's doing from way back when!!

Just normal folks, then.

[Penguincollector]

6 minutes ago, Chris1 said:

 

You're welcome; sorry the photos aren't great. I admit to being a great Townsend fan. I realised I have two other sterling silver ones, not one (as well as three in black lacquer and one chrome Medalist). All bar one broad are medium nibs; fine nibs show up the imperfections in my writing too much!

 

Most are inked and variously contain MB blue-black, Pelikan 4001 blue-black, Penman Sapphire, Diamine Imperial Purple, Diamine Monaco Red, Noodlers Air-Corps, Noodlers highlighter yellow (forget the name), Penman Ebony or Lamy Black as the fancy takes me. 

 

 

 

  My favorite pen for class back in the day was my 1996 18k Cross Century (RIP, lost in a move) with Cross/Pelikan Blue-Black. I absolutely adored that pen. The Townsends are beautiful, can’t say I blame you for being a fan. 

[inkstainedruth]

@Mercian -- Yeah, apparently it is.  I'll have to go through old conversations and see what needs to be deleted and what I might still want to save.  But that might not happen until next week because I have a bunch of packing to do for the weekend (other hobby).  I've been really kinda sluggish the last couple of days and also got sucked into the vortex of the Book of Faces more than I really wanted to be, after sleeping in until nearly 10 AM this morning.   Plus, had a last minute batch of marzipan oranges to make up for the weekend for something happening at the thing I'm going to (I don't even know who it's for, and only found out about the award/reception thing when I was looking up directions to the site).  But at least those are done and the tub they're in is in the fridge and the dishes from that are done (although I'm not sure what's happened to the spare labels I had my husband print off to stick to the tub...).

Of course I don't know where some of the stuff to pack even is at the moment....  And my husband is just now getting home (he's -- in theory, at least -- going to be making up some bread loaves for the thing this weekend).  But of course I ALSO don't know if we're going to need to put more air in the tires of the van (I had to do that a couple of days ago, and also get the gas tank filled up), and he spent several hours driving the guy doing the sideboard for the event around to a restaurant supply for last minute groceries, and then driving the guy home (about a half hour from our house, depending on weather and traffic...).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth