Trying to take photos for a stationary review (Midori pencils!) but Jelly went wild for the smell and wanted to eat the shavings and then be part of the video. Take 25 seconds to breathe on your timeline and enjoy [Alt: black cat demanding, and getting, head scritches]

You also might have a heavy heart, or a list of things to do today to make the world better. It can help to take a breath, or buy some pencils, or hang out with a real or virtual cat, to build a little buffer of health and calm and joy before wading back in to the struggle.

I bought the pencils because I need to tackle the editing of the chapter which is not supposed to be about hate speech/art but which is still actually about hate speech/art. Buying things gives you a short-term joy, and using good tools gives me ongoing pleasure, so win win

Okay onto the review. I LOVE Midori products. Some of my favourite notebooks are Midori but I haven’t used their pencils before.

This pack is called a ‘Drawing Kit’ and has 5 pencils (HB, B, 2B, 4B, 6B), a pencil sharpener (‘refined by craftspeople to ensure not even 0.01mm of misalignment’!) and some pencil caps to protect the led when heading out to a cafe or library to work.

The pencils might be made of cedar? They smell amazing and that’s when Jelly got in on the action. Also, they make a really pleasing curl of pencil sharpening. I could also keep going to refine the sharpness of the lead without losing more wood.

The smoothness of the wood after being sharpened was also very pleasing. And I didn’t have to deal with any lead snapping or chipping, even starting from zero.

The lid caps are genius, and go on and off really smoothly but securely. (Can’t video and demonstrate so you’ll just have to imagine) They look pretty too. Strongly recommend if your cat decides they Must Chew Your Pencils Now, even if you aren’t planning to leave the house!

Got interrupted by a work phone call, quickly scribbled some notes with the closest thing to hand, the B pencil... and it was SMOOTH. Gliding. Buttery. Yessss.