I’m trying something new today – I’m using an old-fashioned form of communication on the blog!

It’s going to be the first in a series of drawings and handwritten notes where I can actually use my favourite writing tool – my fountain pen.

Penmanship and calligraphy are becoming lost arts today. Growing up in the 1950s, I’m more comfortable writing by hand than typing on my laptop. The speed and convenience of the keyboard mean that although we can write more quickly, it doesn’t necessarily follow that what we write is superior.

The great American writer Ralph Waldo Emerson always wrote about individuality, freedom, the ability for humankind to realize almost anything, as long as they nurtured the relationship between the soul and the surrounding world.

I suggest everybody tries it today: write a note, don’t just type it!  What will you write about?

Emerson

Finish each day and be done with it.

You have done what you could.

Some blunders and absurdities have crept in,

Forget them as soon as you can.

Tomorrow is a new day.

You shall begin it serenely

and with too high a spirit to be

encumbered with your old nonsense.

Ralph Waldo Emerson