With the year almost over, it is time for the customary recap, or what some streaming services call “Your 2025 wrapped.”

Pen acquisitions.

Starting the year with a noble intention of a “no-buy” was hopeless for me as my will power is not up to the task. However, to be fair, my pen-acquiring was somewhat more moderate than last year’s, with 35 pens incoming, (down from 52). And of those, I was fortunate to receive seven as gifts, so I bought only 28. My spend on fountain pens was £1,426.

Picking a favourite from the 2025 crop is too difficult but here is an attempt to show a possible top 10 (in no particular order):

The blog.

I have continued to enjoy posting to this blog about twice a month when the inspiration strikes me. In November, the blog reached nine years old – a bloggiversary that I missed. As always, I feel enriched by the interactions that the blog has brought me over the years. The WordPress stats page tells me that my number of published posts currently stands at 296 (not counting this one) and the all time number of views is at 934,000. (“Not bad for a kid from Ickenham, who dared to dream”…cue music, etc…). Again I am grateful to those who read, like and comment on my musings. Thanks again to The Pen Addict, The Gentleman Stationer and The Well-Appointed Desk who each include links to my posts in their weekly round-ups, from time to time.

The London Pen Show.

This year the only pen shows that I have attended have been my local ones in London. These are twice a year, in March and October. Also, the October show was held over two days, a first for us Brits. I attended only on the first day but apparently it was well received. The pen show is a highlight of the year – seeing an overwhelming number of friendly enthusiasts and vendors. Looking back at my list of pen purchases, I have just realised that I bought nine fountain pens at the Spring show and another nine at the Autumn show. Those were clearly my purchasing peaks. I came home with an exciting mix of pens, both new and vintage. The pen show is my happy place!

Pen club.

Throughout the year I have attended the monthly meets of our pen club (“the Fountaineers”) in a London pub where we typically have a dozen or so folks at our regular reserved tables. The shared enthusiasm is infectious. Many of us gathered for lunch as a half-time break at the London Pen Shows. The monthly meets following the shows were an opportunity for “show and tell” of our new acquisitions. It was through the meets that I came to hear of the Asvine J16 brushed titanium piston fill fountain pen and the Asvine V800 vac filler with #8 nib – which were two of my successful acquisitions this year.

On one of our meets, I was pleased to be able to carry out a sac replacement operation on a friend’s vintage Parker button filler, one of the skills acquired on the WES pen repair course that I completed earlier this year.

The Pelikan Hub.

Once again this year, the Pelikan Hub event was masterfully hub-mastered by members of our pen club and held in the same pub at which we meet during the year. This year well over 100 people registered for the event. The evening’s events included a free raffle for a chance to win one of a number of donated prizes. As luck would have it, a star prize and the final draw was won by yours truly and was a most generous donation, namely a fountain pen from Sunil of The Good Blue, called the R615 – along with three bottles of ink. The pen is all metal, a long torpedo shape with a facet on the barrel and cap which serves to keep the pen from rolling. Happily the facets all align when the pen is re-assembled.

The Ashera Aeon.

Early this year I accepted an invitation from Ashera to receive one of their fountain pens for review and return. Ashera agreed to provide a 20% discount for anyone purchasing the pen via a special link given in the blog post, as well as a modest commission for me. Such a venture was new for me. When the time came to return the pen to them, I found I was too attached to part with it. Instead I arranged to buy it from Ashera, with their generous discount. The pen with its long ellipsoid body dominates in the photo above. It features an elm burl wood cap and barrel, (lacquered, dried and polished eight times, by hand) titanium grip section (engraved with my name) and a 14k gold Fine nib. Even with the discount it was easily the costliest and most luxurious acquisition of my year but one that I could not pass up.

Ashera got in touch with me again several months later, offering to send another pen for review, as they had brought out a new version of the Aeon but with an oiled wood finish instead of lacquered and called the Aeon Oleatus. This time, they invited me to keep the pen as a thank you. I happily accepted but could not justify having two such special pens and so requested that this time it be inscribed with the name of a good friend in the pen community, Jon Rabbett of Pensharing, to whom I passed on the pen recently after publishing the review.

Daily journaling.

For another year I have kept up an A5 page a day diary. This year I used just one pen and ink for my diary, for the whole year. The pen was the humble Wing Sung 699 (a Chinese homage to the Pilot Custom 823 vac filler) and the ink was an even more humble blue black created from flushing pens during 2024, and which I call “Slops Blend”. I know that mixing inks is not recommended as bad reactions can occur but thankfully, none did in this case and I am working through a 50ml bottle of my unique mix.

Correspondence.

Apart from keeping a diary, one of my main outlets for using my pens is in corresponding with pen friends in the UK and abroad. One friend in Melbourne generously sent me a surprise gift of three vintage Parkers, which he had rescued from a local charity shop. These included the rolled-gold Parker 45 Insignia pictured above. Another unexpected gift was an Ellington Pens, Nautilus, kindly sent by my brother who is a fan of theirs. Finally, a friend in Seattle visited Japan on holiday and posted a Pilot Prera in teal, which he had bought for me there. Another happy mail day, as you can imagine.

NaNoWriMo.

The organisation which had hosted this annual challenge, to write a 50,000 word novel in November – finally ceased operating in 2025. This does not stop anyone having a go, of course, and it need not necessarily be a novel. An objective is just to get people writing and to hit a target of 1,667 words a day. I had never taken part before but when I saw a mention of the challenge, just at the end of October, I was excited to have a go. I had a nice new notebook which would fit the required word count: I had pen cups bristling with inked pens that I was keen to test out in longer writing sessions. And I had time: to allocate a couple of hours a day to sitting with a fountain pen every day for a month was no hardship!

I thoroughly enjoyed this exercise, picking a topic each day from a set of headings that I had written earlier as writing prompts. I used fountain pens throughout, choosing a different one each day (except for the Asvine V800, a recent arrival which I used for 5 days in a row). I finished the challenge on 30 November 2025 and from a rough estimate, hit well over 60,000 words.

Looking ahead to 2026.

As I type this, grateful for all that I have, I do not currently crave any more pens, (although I am awaiting delivery of a Yongsheng 930 in ivory white any day now). In fact I need to reduce my accumulation and I have arranged to share a table at the London Spring Pen Show to sell a few pens.

I have my 2026 page a day diary ready for next year. I look forward to sharing more inky adventures with friends online and IRL. Come November I might even repeat the NaNoWriMo challenge. Thanks to all, for reading and a Happy New Year.