This Blog is Five Years Old & This Week's Wristwatches.

Wow, five years. Five years of this blog. It began innocently enough...

...and it all went up or down hill from there, depending on your point of view.

It was my wife who suggested I begin a blog. I had been doing some Bond fan fiction writing and she noticed that I was back in a creative writing mood AND also she probably thought that if I began writing about my other interests, it would perhaps give her ears a break. She's no fool. 

I'd been collecting watches long enough and I had about a dozen fountain pens as well. Oh, and three 35mm film cameras. Plus two typewriters. A 1982 Olivetti Lettera 32 that I bought back then, and a circa 1938 Remington that I picked up at an antiques store back in the '80s.

So, part of me perhaps felt that I had enough material to write about. Although, I was still hesitant, worried that I might run out of ideas and end up abandoning this blog, relegating it to the digital graveyard. 

I didn't want that, so I thought about it some more. And then I figured, I could throw my wristwatch reviews on the blog. I could write some more Bond fictions, since there appeared to be something of an actual story there. I could write about my pens, I could write about favourite movies. 

I began to see that there just might be enough going on in my world to sustain a blog. Maybe. 

So, I waited a little longer. 

My work life was really getting me down, and again, it was my wife who thought I should set up this blog even if only to take my mind off my job. 

So, I got it started. Put up the Tissot Visodate review, then a short write-up on the latest typewriter to arrive at my house (a circa 1955 Remington Quiet-Riter), a couple more Bond fanfics, and it seemed that this blog was up and running. 

The first couple of months were very heavy with wristwatch and typewriter-related posts. Which was fine. I was learning a little about typewriters as I went along. I liked the differences in design and feel of each machine that I got. I liked the feeling that I got whenever I'd write on one, thinking that this way of writing was how most (if not all) of my favourite writers had produced their greatest works. I kept buying typewriters, and wound up with seventeen or eighteen of them before deciding to scale back a little. I bought and sold a few. Some machines were beautiful to look at, but not so great to type on. I bought some because they were classics. I bought others because they looked nice, evoking the periods in which they were made.

Then, slowly, I began to have a better idea of what I wanted from my typewriters, and I gott a little ruthless. Because I had collections of other stuff, I felt that maybe I didn't need to have a huge collection of typewriters as well. These things take up quite a bit of space, after all. So I bought one or two more, and sold three or four. I did this for a while until I had decided that I really wanted my machines to be a pleasure to use.

So, as these last few years went by, I sold fourteen typewriters. Some were simple catch & release affairs. Others I agonised over, slightly. But, I had come to the decision that I would only keep the machines that I enjoyed using. Therefore, out went the Corona Four, the Remette, the afore-mentioned Quiet-Riter, the Olympias SF and Splendid 99, and the Smith-Corona Galaxie II, to name a few. 

I'm now down to thirteen typewriters and I'm still considering moving on one or two more of them. Ideally, I'd like to have one slim machine in the collection that types nicely. I have a Smith-Corona Skyriter, which is a small machine, but I don't like its rattly typing action. I may have to hunt around for a late 1950s model or perhaps the Sears equivalent, the Tower Chieftain. 

I have a Groma Kolibri, possibly the slimmest typewriter ever made, but its typing action feels a little leaden to the touch. maybe a platen recovering might fix that. One day. 

The circa 1928 Royal P is another one that I may shift. Beautiful to look at, but types like an old tractor. 

The keepers? Easy. The Olympia SM2, SM3 and SM9. The Royal Quiet De Luxe, the Smith-Corona Standard, Sterling and Silent-Super, the Olivetti Studio, Lettera 32, and the Groma Kolibri.  

And for some reason, that makes ten, and I can't figure what else besides the Royal P and the Skyriter I'd get rid of.

So anyway, that's the typewriter collection taken care of. I don't see myself amassing many more of them. If anything, I think I'd get rid of one or two before buying another one. I'm trying to get the collection down to a dozen. 

As for wristwatches, not much was added to the collection, with the exception of my Grail Watch, the 1982 Rolex Submariner. This was the Big One. The one that started off my fascination with wristwatches when I was a kid... back in the Summer of 1974.
Yeah, that's right. Nineteen Seventy-Four.

Similar to the typewriters, though, I'm coming to the realisation that some watches just don't get worn often enough to warrant holding on to them.
So there's a cull going to happen sometime soon. Nothing drastic. Just a thinning down. 

Anyway, this blog of mine is still chugging along, and I think I still have a few ideas for posts kicking around in the back of my mind. So I may still be here in another five years. 

To those of you who have been visiting this blog since it began, thanks very much! 

Greatly appreciated.

                                                                       *******

Wore the Omega Seamaster AquaTerra last weekend. I have to get a slightly more padded strap for it. Here it is, resting on a page of a book about the legendary pin-up artist Alberto Vargas.

Although these pics were all taken on the same day, I wore this watch early in the week. 

Got to Wednesday and I thought I'd switch to the Sinn 103 chronograph;

I'm enjoying Brandenburg by Henry Porter, but I have to say that I've been going to bed preoccupied with thoughts about work and have found it a little difficult to concentrate on this spy thriller set during the last days of The Berlin Wall. 

As for work, it's going well. I think I've got the job down pat about 70 or 80%. Just have to fine tune the rest. Maybe that's what's occupying my mind when I try to read?

I'll get there.

 

Okay, I'm now officially pretty tired. Think I'll call it a night. 

Thanks again for reading over the last five years, and have yourselves a great weekend!