Notebooks come in all shapes and sizes. Big ones, small ones, tidy ones, scruffy ones, ones with lined pages, ones with plain pages good for drawing as well as writing in.
Never go out without a notebook and a serviceable pen or pencil. Always take a reserve pen in case your number one runs out of ink.
Always keep a notebook within touching distance, you never know when you will want to jot down a musing, idea or thought. This could be in the middle of the night.
Let me describe my current notebook that I always pack as a priority. You might imagine that it's leather bound and executive in feel after all I like to think of myself as a journal keeper or a recorder of life (whatever that means).
At any time of the day or night, at any place I may feel the need to jot down a thought, a memory, an idea or an overheard conversation. But I have this thing about scruffiness when I'm thinking about notebooks.
So you might be surprised if I describe my current notebook. It comes from Poundland, was bought a couple or more years ago and there were five of them for £1. They are ultra small, of dreadful quality, flimsy in the extreme and often fall apart with pages becoming loose. But they aren't designed to last. Everything I jot down or write in them is later transferred to Hethersett Herald or Good News or my website or my blog or any number of other outlets.
I'm not precious in the slightest about these notebooks. They are a means to an end and once I've filled them up and transferred everything in them I tear them up and chuck them in the bin. They have no value to me. I fill in one side and then turn them round and fill up the other and then chuck them away. Sometimes I use old diaries for this purpose.
So why am I writing all this nonsense? Well on Friday I had half an hour to spare before meeting friend Mel at the Queen's Head for lunch (steak baguettes and a pint of Guinness in case you are interested). So I popped into Hethersett Library and came across a very slim volume entitled "Notebook" by Tom Cox. It's a strange little book, full of musings with no real theme. I was drawn towards it because there's quite a lot about Norwich in it.
Unlike me, Mr Cox keeps rather fancy notebooks full of his thoughts. Many of my thoughts go into these blogs. But Tom Cox is different. He keeps notebooks for the purist or rather he did because one of his notebooks covering 10 months of thoughts and ideas was in a rucksack which was stolen. Also in that rucksack was cash, credit cards and a few more things but it was the loss of the notebook that made him feel as if part of his life had been wrenched out, never to be regained. One must assume the notebook was discarded in a skip somewhere or other.
My daily diaries are precious to me so it doesn't leave the house. That often means having to catch up on writing it when I get back from a holiday but I couldn't contemplate how I would feel if I lost a diary. I guess I would feel as Tom Cox felt over the loss of his notebook. I would feel as if part of my life had been lost.
The loss of that notebook prompted him to pop stuff down in hardback form, hence the book I picked up from the library which is made up of random thoughts and ideas.
But now more and more I'm relegating my scruffy notebooks to second place behind writing notes on my mobile phone.
Yesterday was a very busy one. Decided to go ahead with the first grass cut of the year despite the grass being rather wet still. Then it was off to Norwich to see Norwich wallop Rotherham 5-0. It was an expected result as Rotherham are bottom of the league but the way Norwich played was rather predictable after half-time. They raced into a 5-0 lead and then did what so many teams do in a similar situation - they slowed down and just ambled through the last 30 minutes with no great intent. It all fizzled out and the last half hour was frankly boring.
We had a meal at our favourite small restaurant in Norwich Saporita and then went to Cinema City to see Wicked Little Letters which, however implausible it may seem, is based on a true story from the 1920s in Sussex, Littlehampton to be precise.
The language was colourful to say the least. If you are easily offended give this film a swerve but if you don't mind four letter words by the bucketload then it's an entertaining diversion.