It’s time to wake up this blog for another year and, where better to start than with a brief review of the diary that I plan to use?
For 2024, I used a Ryman A5, soft cover, flexi, Page A Day diary for my daily journaling, summarising what I did with the previous day. Occasionally, this might include a list of things I am grateful for (if I can be unselfish enough for a few moments, to remember). My post on the new year diary, 2024 can be re-read here.
This year, I went for the closest equivalent that I could find, which was again from my local Ryman stationers. Whilst seemingly much like last years, I was glad to notice several subtle improvements have been introduced. These are as follows:-
- Instead of last year’s horizontal thin elastic closure, we now have a more conventional, vertical ribbon elastic closure. I disliked the old style, since with short finger nails, it was fiddly to lift the elastic to open the book – an issue for which I designed a simple hack, namely tying a piece of pink ribbon to the elastic.
- Whilst retaining the same soft texture of the covers, last year’s flexible cover has been replaced with a stiffer cover, which I like. It also does away with the need for the little metal reinforcement tab on the edge of the front cover to protect it from being worn by the elastic. Over the year, that piece of metal had lifted, leaving a sharp edge which was a danger to adjacent books.
- A Pen loop has been added, to the back cover. I don’t actually use it (other than for this photo) but it could be useful.
- Something that I have only today noticed, the row height has been increased very slightly from 7.6mm to 7.9mm. I must admit, I was assuming that they were both 8mm until I checked.
- Best of all, the 2025 edition now includes a Page A Day for Saturdays and Sundays, whereas last year they shared a page.
Otherwise, the two editions are much the same, with a ribbon page marker, cream paper which is fountain pen friendly and with sewn binding, to open flat without damage.
This suits my needs very nicely. For longer entries, such as holiday journaling, I use a separate Leuchtturm A5 notebook, with either plain paper or dot grid. Day to day pen and ink sampling and therapeutic pen time is done in a Stalogy A5 Editor Series 4mm grid, 365 page note book, a product which I have now used and enjoyed for several years.
For bullet-journaling, I upgraded my old Ryman A4 notebook to a WHSmiths Moderna Ruled A4 Leather Notebook, with 96 ivory sheets of 100gsm paper. I have set this up with monthly spreads, for the years 2024 to 2029 inclusive. It is very useful to log dates which are a year or more in advance, such as car and house insurance renewals, guarantee expiry dates, or investment product maturity dates. As well as these grown-up uses, I also like to include books read, albums listened to, trips to the gym and other day to day life admin.
So there you have it. Here’s wishing everyone a Happy New Year and hoping for happy events to plan and record in our diaries for 2025!
Fountain pen blog 
Very impressive Rupert!
Wrote a letter proper to you last night.
Greetings to you and your lovely wife!
Lennart
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Many thanks Lennart. I will look forward to your letter! Best wishes from London.
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I was saddened to discover my local Rymans in Dumfries had closed a little after covid lockdown. I still miss popping in to browse when I’m in town. The curse of the high street again.
Fortunately I am regularly given a Leuchtturm page a day diary for Christmas. They leave a page for notes at the end of each week which I enjoy as a change to record my more obscure interests (such as fire wood credits and withdrawals from the wood shed) and make weekly notes and readings. I’ve tried their other diary formats but don’t feel there is enough space on balance. It seems your latest Ryman diary is getting close to the book I prefer
I often feel a little guilty if I don’t use space in my diary for a few days as often seems to happen but then on the days I do want to write a little more I am glad to have a full page so it doesn’t all have to be crammed into a small space.
A little like music, I have found myself appreciating that gaps between the notes can be almost as valuable as the notes themselves when trying to make sense of it again.
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Thank you for your comments! Sorry to learn that your local Rymans has gone. I visited mine frequently, looking for any irresistible offers. I should get a job there as I almost know all the stock and prices by heart.
I enjoyed your analogy regarding music and the gaps between the notes!
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It’s good to see that the Ryman diary continues to be your go-to. Of the tweaks you mention in this year’s model, the move to a full page for Saturday and Sunday gets my approval. I’m also interested by the line spacing. I am continuing to use my Silvine school exercise books to do my daily journal entries. I bought a Leuchtturm 120gsm notebook at the Autumn Pen Show, but when the time came, I just chose to carry on with the Silvines.
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Thanks Pamela. Yes, the paper in Silvine notebooks is lovely and I use their little red pocket books all the time.
You will enjoy having the Leuchtturm notebook in stock, for when you have a use for it. Perhaps it is time for another novel!
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This year I chose the least bad option from the 20 to 30 daily diaries available at the stationery shop I frequent. The worst thing is that the row height is 5 mm and the paper is sensitive to bleed-through. It is appropriate to use EF nibs.
I would certainly have bought the Ryman diary had it been available in my local shop. The 8 mm line spacing pleases me very much. The paper grammage is very close to my preferred 70 GSM.
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Sorry to hear about the lack of good options at your local stationer.
If there is room, you could perhaps write on alternate rows, giving you a 10mm spacing. For papers that suffer from bleed through you can try changing inks, eg Cross black, or Aurora blue black. Alternatively you may experiment with some other pens, such as Pentel Energel 0 .7, liquid gel pens.
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