It has been holiday time again. We have recently returned from a two week cruise on Cunard’s Queen Anne which included four days in Iceland. Departing from Southampton, we also stopped in Belfast on the way north. On the return leg, we spent a day in Stornoway in the Outer Hebrides and a day in Greenock, on the Clyde near Glasgow.

As ever, a vacation signals to me some journaling time with pen and ink. Although luggage limitations are less of a constraint on a cruise, I still wished to keep things simple. I decided on a select few fountain pens, namely my new Ashera Aeon, a vintage Parker Senior Duofold and lastly a TWSBI eco-T, in saffron yellow (holiday colours) with an extra fine nib. My thinking was that I would fill the TWSBI to use if the other pens ran dry, and avoid the need to bring a bottle of ink. As usual my journal-of-choice for travelling was a Leuchtturm A5 hardback.

Our cabin included a small desk next to the balcony, but in reality it was a dressing table and the stool was too low for writing. The balcony was equipped with two seats and a small table. The hardback notebook works well resting on a knee, but I found the sea-scape more interesting than my journal and seldom managed more than a few lines outdoors.

Fortunately there is no shortage of comfortable seating around the ship, in the lounges, buffet-restaurants and in areas such as Library and the Chart Room. In the latter, I found some desks equipped with a seal, to stamp an image of our ship and her name onto paper, albeit without the luxury of melted wax.

It has become a custom of mine, or perhaps an unhealthy obsession to look for fountain pen shops whilst abroad, in the vain hope of coming across a delightful and friendly shop with some exquisite, unusual and attractively-priced fountain pens as possible souvenirs of my travels. Whilst this has succeeded on some occasions (such as Porto, or Bruges), this was not to be one of those trips. In fact I barely found anything with a nib, the whole time. Don’t get me wrong; this is probably not a bad thing as my magpie tendencies to acquire fountain pens are not sustainable.

We had favourable weather for almost all our trip. The one exception was whilst in Northern Ireland, where we had time for an excursion to the coast to see The Giant’s Causeway, the spectacular basalt rock columns and a World Heritage Site. Here we encountered a very heavy downpour.

I had been excited to visit Iceland again. I holidayed there in 2008 visiting several areas of spectacular and varied volcanic landscape along the south coast, but this time, we were to have two days in Reyjavik and a day each in the northern fjiord ports of Isafjordur and Akureyri.

Reykjavik was very much just as I remembered it from 17 years earlier. We found our old hotel, Hotel Leifur Eriksson, opposite the landmark cathedral, Hallgrimskirkja with its 73 metre tower, perched like a space shuttle against the sky.

Once again I browsed in a book shop, Eymundsson (since 1872). In 2008, I had bought a copy of “The Sagas of Icelanders” published by Penguin Classics. I was surprised to see that there was again a tall pile of these same books on a table, just as there had been when I was here last. It was as if time had stood still.

It was here that I ventured downstairs to the stationery section, hunting for fountain pens. I found only a few Pelikan Jazz pens and was content to leave these alone. Had we been shopping rather than sight-seeing, there were plenty of examples of Icelandic wool pullovers and hats for sale in the city. I also found a lovely watch shop on the main street, named GullBudin, which had a good selection of Orient watches in particular.

Our next port of call was Isafjordur. Here, even our ship was dwarfed by the hills of the fjiord, their peaks hidden in cloud. We had a morning excursion to visit a waterfall and an afternoon free to explore the small town. Here, we came across an elegant white building now described as a culture house. It was formerly a hospital and still contained exhibits of beds and equipment and old black and white photographs of nurses and staff.

In a large upper room we found the space empty, but for two curving bookcases, filled with books but many with blank spines or covers. On closer inspection, we found that these were notebooks and that we were in a participatory art installation, called Book Space, by Elin Hansdottir. This project comprised 2,000 blank notebooks inserted into library collections in which visitors are invited not to read but to write, draw or contribute in any way they choose. Being unable to resist a blank notebook, I began one and proceeded to write a page with each of three fountain pens that I was carrying, identifying the pen and ink in each case. I hope that others may find it and add their own entries!

Our guide that morning had mentioned that rhubarb is grown in the area and told us of a local treat called “Happy Marriage Cake”, comprising a biscuit base, a layer of rhubarb jam and then baked with a crumble topping. Naturally I felt it could do no harm to taste some, when a cake shop presented itself!

In Akureyri we had another coach tour to visit some of the spectacular sights of the landscape, including the colossal Godafoss Waterfall, some lava rock formations and a vast area of geothermal activity with sulphurous steam spouting from the ground and burbling mud pools.

After Iceland, our visit to Stornoway in the Outer Hebrides seemed rather tame, but was in fact the only port on our trip in which the captain had struggled to enter safely, due to high winds. It took three attempts before the ship could be berthed, but we still had ample time to see the town and to attend an exhibition of Harris Tweed, which is made only on these islands.

Our final shore visit of the cruise was in Greenock, on the Clyde and from which it is just a short train ride into Glasgow. We spent some time acclimatising ourselves back to the UK mainland. Glasgow in the sunshine was a lively and vibrant city. It was a graduation day for the University of Strathclyde and so we saw several new graduates in their gowns with their families. It seemed as if there was music from buskers around every street corner which leant a nice mood to our strolls.

In the familiar territory of a John Lewis department store, I made my last attempt to find a fountain pen display counter, but alas, there was none. However, I did spot some bottles of Waterman ink generously discounted from about £11.00 down to £3.45 and so availed myself of this opportunity to support the economy.

I had almost failed in buying a fountain pen at all on this trip, but this failure was avoided by finding a newsagents in Stornoway with a Platignum Tixx, for a couple of pounds and thought it worth a try. I did not realise until afterwards, that it it a disposable one.

In conclusion, we had a very happy trip. The time at sea was filled with food and entertainment (theatre shows, interesting talks, and live music of all types) and meeting new friends. As for the journaling, I had made the mistake of starting the trip with the TWSBI eco-T, and then using it every day as my main journaling pen for the rest of the trip, as I enjoyed it so much. Still it was nice to have the others for variety. And yes, I did still return home with more ink than I had started with.