The debonair Basil Marigold's

So, it finally happened. The Pen fund of legend has been spent, for maybe two reasons. It had got up to an amount where even I began to get a little nervous about buying a pen with it, as opposed to doing something else, like, for instance building an extension to the house. The other is that Grace told me too. So, I had planned a trip out to assess the fund while my wife headed to IKEA to see a friend. Her friend wasn't well so it became a family trip to Nottingham! The pen fund stood at £225 at the start of the day and we had discussed yesterday that if we saw something for a reasonable price, my wife would contribute to it as my valentine's/birthday present. Arriving at Pen Sense, makes me understand totally the emotions of Augustus Gloop, when he entered Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. I feel his pain of all that chocolate and only one tummy. I see all those pens and feel like I would like the income of Simon Cowell, so I could build myself a house out of pens. My wife...

I am heading into the Regional Capital tomorrow morning, to buy my wife's christmas present and hopefully I shall exchange my pen fund for a rather nice Mont Blanc pen! This is the plan as I will head to pen sense and see what my fund will buy, if anything from the Mont Blanc range of Fountain Pens. If I am successful I shall post a photo tomorrow!

One can only be amazed at the intelligence of children. Our daughter, the Gruntfuttock, has been for a while now, jabbering away in a form of pre-talking communication. It is essentially noises but you can recognise it as her trying to talk. I had dreams of her graduating from an Oxford College, her first in Classics and Theoretical Quantum Physics. Today, this dream was re-assessed while in Specsavers. While both her Mother and I  looked for a new pair of spectacles, then witnessed the scene of our daughter attempting to communicate by high pitched squeals, squeaks and hand gestures to another child. Sadly, this only lasted for five minutes, after all how long can you spend talking to a mirror? We wheeled her away soon after, before she started blowing raspberries at herself.

...with the old artrage programme and am getting more familiar with it and starting to also get a handle on what I think I am expressing. I do think the graphics tablet will help as a mouse really is fiddly and limits me to the below and the previously posted. Not quite at the detailed level yet, very broad, but hopefully colourful. I think I see improvement in each one.

So, for the past few days I may have stayed up a little later than was probably good for me. It was for a great reason though, and that is...The Grandslam of Darts! I love the sport of darts, and yes it is a sport, it should be an Olympic sport. I long dream of a 20st, beer drinker winning a gold medal. I was, when I was attempting to recreate the lifestyle of Jim Morrison, pint by pint in the late 1990's I was a member of a small pub Darts League team. I may well be brave and say I could have been the only Classicist who played in a pub darts team. Which to me seems quite odd as for 3 years we studied people who if nothing else, could throw a mighty big, pointy spear. Greek Darts I contend.

When driving home and pondering what it would be like to be driving in an Aston Martin, supercar. Do not, I repeat, do not get so into the image that when you change down gear to turn right into the home street, and you find yourself attempting to do this by flicking the flappy-paddle gears that are built onto the steering wheel. Remember that as far as you are aware, Ford never built this option into a 1.4 55plate Ford Fusion and so, when it doesn't work, it will take a few seconds to realise you'll have to use that funny little stick which sticks out for the floor to change gear. I have learned this lesson.

Well before I head for my bed, after a particularly tough 5 a side game from tonight, cursing my age, my unfitness and my all round, roundness. I fancied another go with the art rage. As you can progress is slow, pretty similar styles to before, because they essentially suit the level of detail I can get with a mouse. I think maybe I am obsessed with sunsets. They truly do inspire at times and I have to make the most of them as I have calculated that should I live to the age of 70, I will have experienced 25,550 of them. So far I have lived through 12045, approximately and some have been truly majestic. Though I sometimes wonder why my brain works in a way in which I need to know how many I have and will see. Does anybody else do this? Anyway I have a tried a different form for the next one, which I quite like and as always not what I originally had in mind as it is difficult to not let the minds eye take over, every now and again. Maybe lighting, definitely some form of electrical ...

Before I retire for the night to bed, where my poorly wife is at present, she has a cold, from child, which I am sure is heading my way, I had another crack with these oils. It really is good fun, and you still have an undo button too! A dark and brooding moorland style for nighttime me thinks. Shame Tony Hart is no longer with us, I could have got to the gallery!  And before I go, RIP Edward Woodward, the Equaliser.

I have a pen fund and it's doing rather nicely at the moment. Though my wife and I disagree over the morality of owning such an expensive pen. We did discuss what we'd do if it reached a £1000 and I spent this on a pen, but I doubt it will go this far. Though if it did I have identified a nice pen, which I could import from Japan for around this price. They are exceptional pens. You can also purchase many limited edition pens for at least this price. I think my mont blanc will be discreetly less than this. This is not the purpose of the post, it is to discuss that I can, and do have a penchant for being a bit 'faddy' at times. My present fad is my umming and arrghhing about buying a graphic tablet for christmas as I downloaded a free 30 day trial version of Corel Painter 11. It is used by professional graphic artists to paint digitally. I like to think I am a little arty myself, well my art teacher did and he always put pressure on my mum to send me to art school after ...

Now, in the late 1970's council workers came in for a lot of stick about the way they worked. You know the old, six men drinking tea, watching one man dig a whole. Starting a job, and then having a tea break after ten minutes, because you are on council time, etc. Well, I thought this was a myth about how they worked and truth be told Ihave much more respect for council officers having worked with them closely but every now and again, they let me down. I saw this in the loading bay. Now I thought, as a rational man, that this was pretty self explanatory and the old saying of, 'It ain't rocket science'.

If you are  afficianado's of Mr Terry Pratchett and his discworld series, you will be aware that dwarfs are renowned for two things; songs about Gold, which tend to go 'Gold, Gold, Gold, Gold....' and that they use, as their deadliest weapon, dwarf bread. It is also a food and you can survive for days with dwarf bread, as it makes everything else around it look edible, he says. Well. It appeared that my lovely wife has been discreetly reading my much smaller Pratchett collection, than was. So here is revealed the first human made dwarf bread. Now, as you can see it is quite focused in its density. I can though assure you it is arguably the heaviest loaf of bread I have ever lifted and is the equivalent of a common house brick, both of which could go through, without much thought, a plate glass window fairly easily.