It's not an omen

A mention online of highlighter ink for fountain pens lead to my browsing the Andy's Pens website for the first time in a while (because how many fountains pens does a person need), but I soon forgot about highlighter ink in my joy at the vintage Chinese pens. I thought all vintage fountain pens cost £££s but these colourful delights are cheap. And colourful. And we both swooned and succumbed to a joint pen-buying accident.



I also purchased a bottle of Diamine Shimmering Ink in a colour described as Sparkling Shadows. I was a little disappointed - it's a faded black with the faintest of sparkles if you squint carefully and know it's there. Abrinsky has been reassuring about tasteful understatement.

The large orange pen and the metal one are abrinsky's, the red and the yellow ones are mine. The yellow pen cost less than the Sparkling Shadows. All of them write satisfyingly well. The yellow one is a Parker knockoff, a copy of the pen that was most popular at my school (where using a fountain pen was compulsory). I have always been too cool awkward to go with the popular choice and opted for a Sheaffer which I liked when it behaved and resented when my fingers and schoolbag were covered in ink. My Hero knockoff confirms I was an idiot to resist the Parker.