50 new Nikko G nibs!

This is my new batch of 50 Nikko G nibs direct from Japan, which I got this morning. Our friend Warren, who lives in Tokyo, went to a gargantuan art shop to get them for me. This little lot should last me for several years; although I should change my nibs more often than I do, I get through about 12 of these per year and stocks were running low, so this delivery is a real life-saver!

Sharp and very, very fine, these ultra-bendy steel nibs are made in Japan and are capable of a seriously impressive range of stroke widths - from hairline (almost invisible) to absolutely vulgar girth. They are, apparently, the favoured choice of the Manga artist, and although Manga is not to my taste, a lot of the work you see on my sites over the last twelve months (including my Snowtrees Christmas print) will have been done with these nibs. They were first bought for me as a pressie exactly a year ago by my friend Dick Hogg who'd picked them up on his travels, along with a fish-cake shaped rubber! Cheers Warren, cheers Dick - it's great having international chums!

I got up for work at 3.30am this morning to gird my loins for a full-on first day back at the coalface. Strangely excited, I had been trying to convince Leigh I could hear snow falling in the night. On leaping out of bed (I leap into, but never out of bed, so something was up) I saw this. All that remained to was write in it and my first-day-back-at-school-blues were gently blown away at a silent, fluffy zero degrees, one flake at a time.