Rohrer & Klingner Special Edition Schreibtinte Kastanienbraun

Rohrer and Klingner just released a special edition ink for 2019, a brown colour called Kastanienbraun, which roughly translates to maroon. It seems a bit more like a brown than a true maroon, but in either case, it’s a rich, warm brown.

It’s a beauty, although I’m biased towards browns in general. I guess I could make any colour a seasonally appropriate colour (one of my many talents), but I like to think of this as the leafless tree branches in an all white winter landscape of snow and ice.

The writing sample is done with my Platinum 3776 Tortoise on the 013 Lightweight (Tomoe River) insert in my Traveler’s Notebook. Two old favourites joining a new one.

I haven’t talked about a Rohrer & Klingner ink in a long time, despite their being one of my favourite lines (top three inks off the top of my head: Sepia, Salix, Alt-Goldgrun), and actually one of the first brands we brought in before we even opened up at 906 Dundas West. Rohrer and Klingner is a reliable and no-nonsense kind of a brand, with solid, well-behaved inks. They’ve been around since 1982 (!) and make inks for drawing, lithography, and of course fountain pen or writing ink, among many other purposes.

The ink comes in simple, brown glass bottles, which could possibly be some protection against light. I’m no scientist so I have no idea if that’s actually true, but it would not surprise me at all if that was the case.

***

In other news, we’re a bit behind on things. It’s always a busy time of year, but I hadn’t anticipated this year’s perfect storm with increased shop hours, school Christmas concerts, rehearsals, tiny tasks multiplying on my list like ordering Christmas candles (really something I should try doing in the summer to avoid this year end madness), behind the scenes admin and planning, year end celebrations, family obligations, sending out Christmas cards to our growing list of vendors, changes in scheduling, potlucks, emails, book fairs, projects coming to a standstill. I recently had to pick up a few items from Shoppers And told Jon he had to watch Naomi so I could dip in “real quick.” Shockingly, I ended up spending half an hour there roaming the aisles, childless, accumulating sale items in my basket, basking in the glory of having only two necessary items on my list for a brief spell. At least now we have hair conditioner for the next six months.

However, we’ve finally got some Christmas lights up, the Christmas candles are lit in the shops, and we’re en route to getting a tree sometime later this week. Every year we say to ourselves we’re going to do it earlier, both because procrastinating on an exhausting day long adventure in the thick of the holidays is a terrible idea, but also because the later it gets in the year, the colder it gets outside, hunting and chopping down now two trees, one for each shop.

Chop your own wood and it’ll warm you once, if it’s a tree. But twice, I suppose, if you need two trees. Too bad I’m just supervising the chopping.

***

Currently reading: Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
Currently in the instant pot: congee
Currently dreaming about: a new puppy, as I recently spent an evening with a fresh one my goodness there is nothing like the smell of a wiggling puppy
Currently being driven crazy by: a fleet of paper airplanes, in various states of disrepair and my own broken record of threats of the recycling bin
Latest house project, while in charge of Naomi and unable to actually contribute to shop operations because she is wild and unruly and without reason: cleaning out and organizing under the bathroom sink*
Latest mystery to ponder: discovering a Christmas card without an envelope on my desk and wondering what card I had sent in a package already mailed out

*Then again, I’m typing this now, while Naomi is eating raspberries on my white bedspread, so it turns out you can indeed find a work/life balance If You Only Try Hard Enough™.