Wednesday 23rd............

It had to be a clean up day today. We have visitors on Friday, just for the afternoon, so a little bit of polish will make me feel good, if nobody else. Our electricity supply will be off from early morning until mid afternoon tomorrow, to lay in a new supply cable, so I needed to get tomorrows jobs done today. Just the lounge to put the final shine on and then everything will be ready.

Whilst dusting and tidying, I started to count pencils. I have a lot of pencils. I prefer them to Biro's or those gel things. Pencils write uphill, don't blot, and if you make a mistake.........! I counted 32 mechanical pencils and 7 of the old cedar wood variety, all within easy reach. Burrow around and you could find a couple of dozen more.

My favourite, a T.5mm Rotring, part of a drawing and inking set, most used, Staple's own .7mm, or possibly an ASDA's own mb7104 .5mm, supplied with spare erasers (made in China wouldn't you know). Ok, Ok....... so I'm a little nuts about pencils. It's not my fault. A sign of a deprived childhood.

At infants school, mine was always the last one in the jar. The sticky one, the one with the badly chewed end, the one who's lead would break as soon as it touched the paper, or the one that was not really a pencil, more a stub.

I've tried all sorts of writing instruments over the years, and paid a lot for the pleasure, but have always returned to a pencil. Don't you just love the black of a 5B or the lightness on the paper of the 5H? A pencil suits the way I spell ................. and is easy to rub out. Unlike other mistakes in life.