the four right chords can make me cry

I don't know why, but I was hesitant about going there. I thought I would get lost, the Jewellry quarter is the furthest i've gone from the hostel. But i'm glad i went there, it was such a homely, pleasant place. A nice old white haired man in a blue sweater taught me how to make a pen nib and showed me around the museum. He laughed and said, "you were born too late!" because i told him i'd never used a pen like that before, which suddenly made me feel like ballpoint pens totally sucked. I happily sat down and tried all their pens, and the atmosphere was very much like kindergarten, brightly lit rooms with a sturdy wooden table and paper and pens and inkpots. My scrawly handwriting was very much kindergarten work too. They offered me tea/coffee and biscuits and i felt as though i had just been welcomed into a home.
Did you know that at one point, 3/4 of everything being written all over the world came from a pen nib produced in birmingham? And that Josiah Mason, who owned a really big pen factory, founded the school that eventually became the University of Birmingham? The availability of cheap, mass-produced pens helped the spread of literacy, so that was Birmingham's contribution to the world! Stuff I take for granted but now have a better appreciation of, the humble pen.
The Pen Room http://www.penroom.co.uk/
Please go and make a donation and buy stuff, it's one of those places that i want to stay alive.

Also went to go see Miss Potter today. As whimsical as a Potter book, not something for the die-hard realist. But not a bad movie. that I like Ewan McGregor might have helped.

posted by beckyboo @ 3:03 AM