Monday, September 29, 2008

Time flies

Its been a little while since my last post, work has been busy and I've been on holiday. We made our annual pilgrimage out to Turkey, and it always provides a good opportunity to spend some time writing in my journal. There is always the dilema of which pen to take too. What is the best travel solution and what do you need to consider for transporting ink and pens when having to endure airport security. I stuck to my old formula this time around, a Lamy Safari and some Lamy black cartidges. The pen being empty when I fly out to avoid any leaks due to cabin pressure changes. I keep the pen and catridge in a zip lock bag just to be on the safe side though. Check-in was a pain. The usual long wait associated with budget airlines. But, security was a breeze compared to previous trips, or so I thought. Security usually adds quite a bit of time to that required to get airside. It didn't help that we were travelling with our little boy for the first time. A real recipe for stress. Much to our relief, there were no queues though and we went straight through to the x-ray machine. My bags went through and immediately a security guard latched on to me. 'Would you come this way please sir'. 'Do you have any sharp objects in your bag?' My first thought was I am going to have to explain what a fountain pen is, what the ink cartridges are and my wife will be annoyed about the extra delays. But no, its my little boy's bottle and food they want me to test personally. Ah well. Coming back, I left a half empty ink cartridge in the pen and it did leak a little. But only into the cap. Nothong to worry about. A little bit of kitchen roll mopped up the offending ink. What was amusing though was I paid lots of attention and thought on the air pressure change affect on my pen, but not on my little boy's bottle in my hand luggage. One wet bag and one wet journal.