I mentioned that I bought a couple of things in the art shop on Saturday.  With the travel journal in mind, I thought I’d look at a couple of notebook options.

I liked the look of these Midori spiral bound notebooks, especially the one with the brown paper pages.  It’s never simple, though, is it – they didn’t have my favourite small size in brown, just white…so I bought both the small white and the larger brown one, just to try.

I already had a new pack of small Moleskine Cahiers, tried and tested for handbag use.

I also bought a couple of the squared paper Oxford notebooks from a French supermarket when we were there last. 

I love that “papier satiné”  (sorry about the reflection – the covers are very shiny!)

I’d got a new set of tiny ink pads in my chosen palette for this trip too, so got out my trusty rubber stamp to do a bit of a test.

I used the first page as a test ground and stamped two colours to see which paper will be most likely to allow the ink to soak through.

Beginning top left and working clockwise, here’s what came through to the other side of the page in firstly, the small white Midori, then the brown paper Midori, the Moleskine and finally, the squared paper Oxford.

I wasn’t surprised by the Moleskine, because I’ve always regarded that as the main shortcoming of the brand (and one of the reasons I tend to scribble in pencil).  But the Oxford totally let me down too.  Maybe it’s going to be a brown paper journal this time?