A Typewritten Journal & The Atoma Notebook

Typewritten Page

For more years than I care to remember I have toyed with the idea of writing a journal and from time to time I have actually managed to make some progress. My efforts started almost inevitably with a paper diary which was written in longhand but it wasn’t long before I started to run out of steam and the process withered on the vine, until the next time of course.

Over the years I stopped and I started. I experimented with any number of different types of notebook, different pens, different types of paper, you know the score. I bought and tried Moleskine notebooks, Evernote notebooks, Whitelines notebooks, pretty much all of them have passed through my hands and under my pen(s) at one time or another. For me, as well as writing a journal, the whole process itself was important and I found myself concentrating just as hard, in fact probably harder, on finding the perfect “system” for writing my journal, rather than actually writing it.

It may well be familiar to others but I was always in pursuit of the “perfect” system, if such a thing exists. I wanted to be able to settle on a system that I would be able to use for years into the future without suddenly finding that the system I had settled upon was no longer available, it’s format had changed, it had been updated or in some other way had been “improved” in comparison with the system I had originally chosen, it has all been very frustrating.

You will have gathered from my mention above of the Evernote and Whitelines systems that I have had many a dalliance with various technology based “solutions” to writing in a journal, none of which have truly delivered what I had initially hoped they would.

I have tried a number of phone/tablet based options to record my trials and tribulations, one of the more recent ones, and one that lasted quite a while, was the DayOne system but I still felt that something was missing. I think the fundamental problem, for me at least, of technology based solutions has been the fact that it all lacks “feel” and authenticity. I find that if I type my journal into a phone or tablet my words just seem to have disappeared never to be seen again and if I’m honest the whole thing just became a chore to me which I ceased to enjoy. I needed something founded in reality, not a virtual record somewhere in “The Cloud”.

TYPEWRITER, enter stage left. I have always liked typewriters, I like the sound, I like the authenticity, I like the mechanics and I like their longevity. I could go on but there are many reasons for me liking typewriters. It seemed to me that if I decided to type out my journal using a vintage typewriter that settled one side of the problem, no more looking for the perfect pen. I played around for a few days and realised quickly that this was the right solution for me, it just felt “right”. A typewritten journal it was then, but what about the recording medium?

ATOMA notebook, enter stage right. The choice of the recording medium itself was going to be very important, I was in this for the long haul and I wanted to be as sure as I possibly could be that what I started buying now was going to be available in 5, 10 and maybe 20 years time, or at least there had to be a fighting chance that it would be. I was looking for something with a pedigree and hopefully a future.

After much thought and exploration I settled on the ATOMA system, the company itself has been going for over 70 years having started in 1948, this gave me some confidence that it was hopefully going to be around for the long term. The company is Belgian and the product range is relatively modest, which I like.

The key feature of the ATOMA system is that it is a disc binding system which means that pages can be removed from a binder and replaced, a bit like a ring binder only better. This system allows you to remove pages and replace them in different orders, to also use smaller format pages in the same notebook and to simply insert them where you like and also to use the special punch to produce your own sheets or to add external material to your journal if required. Sadly the dedicated ATOMA punch is not a cheap item, it is expensive, but there are alternatives I believe, I bit the bullet and bought one.

The all-important paper itself is available in plain paper, lined, chequered, dotted and there are also other inserts available. I use the cream plain paper for my writing and it works very well for me. I simply remove a sheet from the binder, pop it into the typewriter, and type away, when I’m finished it simply slips back into the binder. The paper is 90gsm and I find that I can type on both sides of the paper without any problems at all which is a big plus for me.

I am now completely settled on my journal system, it’s a manual typewriter and an ATOMA notebook and paper from here on, the final decision has been made and I’m delighted. It is nice to know that in five year’s time I know that I will still be using the same system and I love seeing a real journal appearing out of the typewriter, one character at a time.

I love the fact that there is a direct physical conversion of my thoughts into ink embedded into the paper via my muscles and the mechanical linkages in this old machine. No distractions, no alteration of my words and errors by a computer algorithm, no grammatical suggestions and no spellings being altered. I’ve even reverted to using a proper dictionary to look things up myself so that I don’t have to interact with technology at all as I write, I leave my telephone in another room.

In purely practical terms I put a piece of paper into the machine in the morning and type on and off during the day adding as I wish, as things happen, and when I feel like it. At the end of the day the paper comes out of the machine and goes back into its binder. With this system I am finding writing a journal easy and an absolute pleasure.

Seeing a little record of my life slowly appearing in a bound book as each day passes is something I enjoy and will have no problem continuing with, this system works for me. If I want a segment of my writing in a digital format I have a very simple process for that so that I now type up pretty much everything in my notebook/journal on a manual typewriter and just extract the text I want in a digital format as required, that’s for the next short article.

Typed on an Imperial Good Companion Typewriter Model T. The machine was made in Leicester, England in 1939. I have no commercial relationship with ATOMA, I simply buy their products.

A HASE Pino & Us - First Ride!

Having recovered from the journey and spent some time properly getting to grips with the HASE Pino at home it was time to try the bike out for real. I could hardly wait. Lorena and I loaded the Pino onto the bike rack, I also must mention that this THULE rack is fantastic, it’s just so easy to put onto and take off the car, it makes transporting the Pino a breeze.

We decided, rather than launch straight onto the roads with unfamiliar handling, to head for a local car park that we knew would be quiet to just get the feel of things and this was going to be the moment of truth, was this bike going to solve the problems it had been bought to solve?

I tried the bike solo first and I was staggered. I found it immediately comfortable and the power from the Shimano E6100 motor was smooth and the motor was quiet, it made a huge difference even in ECO mode. I very quickly got used to the different handling and I found myself riding round and round the car park with a huge grin on my face, I didn’t want to stop! Is there such a thing as the “Pino Grin”🙂

Lorena wasn’t going to let me get away with it, she wanted to be in the Stoker Seat and to find out whether after all this time we were going to be out riding a tandem around Northumberland again, whether this bike was going to solve the sciatica problem.

Within moment of setting off we both knew that this was a winner and that we had backed the right horse. Lorena found the riding position comfortable and felt safe, all her apprehension about being on the front evaporated and was replaced by the sheer pleasure of a clear view of the road ahead and the wind in her face.

Riding around the car park was not really representative of the reality of cycling in the UK because the surface was good and the area was flat but it was enough to tell us that this bike is going to work for us. I have no doubt that we have made the right choice and I am hopeful that we will have many hours of pleasure now that we are back on a tandem again after a number of years.

It is my intention to continue to write up our experiences of the Pino as we venture further afield and cover more miles. For the moment we are just delighted that this leap of faith has worked out. I also plan to produce a series of videos of our experiences and points of interest which I hope might encourage others to take the plunge.

Take Hold of Every Moment

A friend of mine opened his wife’s underwear drawer and picked up a silk paper wrapped package:

“This, he said, isn’t any ordinary package.”

He unwrapped the box and stared at both the silk paper and the box. “She got this the first time we went to London, eight or nine years ago. She has never put it on, she was saving it for a special occasion, well, I guess this is it”.

He moved near to the bed and placed the gift box next to the other clothing he was taking to the undertakers, his wife had just died. He turned to me and said:

“Never save something for a special occasion. Every day in your life is a special occasion”. I still think those words changed my life.

Now I read more and clean less. I sit on the porch without worrying about anything. I spend more time with my family, and less at work. I understand that life should be a source of experience to be lived up to, not survived through. I no longer keep anything. I use crystal glasses every day. I’ll wear new clothes to go to the supermarket, if I feel like it. I don’t save my special perfume for special occasions, I use it whenever I want to. The words “someday…” and “One day…” are fading away from my dictionary. If it’s worth seeing, listening to, or doing, I want to see, listen to, or do it now. I don’t know what my friend’s wife would have done if she knew she wouldn’t be there the next morning, this nobody can tell. I think she might have called her relatives and closest friends. She might call old friends to make peace over past quarrels.

I’d like to think she would go out for a Chinese, her favourite food. It is these small things that I would regret not doing, if I knew my time had come. I would regret it because I would no longer see the friends I would meet, letters… letters that I wanted to write “one of these days…”

I would regret and feel sad, because I didn’t say to my brother and sons, not times enough at least, how much I love them.

Now, I try not to delay, postpone or keep anything that could bring laughter and joy into our lives. And, on each morning, I say to myself that this could be a special day. Each hour, each minute, each second, is special. If you have been given this it is because someone cares for you and because, probably, there’s someone you care about. If you are too busy to re-write this and give it to someone else and you say to yourself that you will send it “One of these days”, remember that “One day” is far away… or might never come.