I'm quite picky about what I want to journal in/write my diary in. It has to have a page per day - none of this nonsense with Saturday and Sunday sharing a page. It has to be A5 or thereabouts. By preference it should have a horizontal elastic closure (so I can tuck a pen in it) and a ribbon marker.
I don't really care whether there are monthly pages at the start or information pages, or maps or any of that... but I do like to have a few pages for notes at the back to record what I've been reading, plus log a few other things.
After much searching, I finally bought next year's diary a couple of weeks ago.
And... it's not a Ciak (unlike the last umpteen years).
Oh, and it's definitely not a Moleskine (been there, done that, never doing it again).
So, what is it?
It's a page per day A5 diary from Rymans!
I searched and searched for a page per day diary. There were some lovely-looking ones in Paperchase, but most of them had Saturday and Sunday sharing a page. The one that didn't was out of stock online and nowhere to be seen in store. I did look again at the Ciak, but the paper quality is getting worse and more yellow and I'm not liking the 'reconstituted leather' cover either. And they are quite expensive for what they are. Last year, I managed to get the A5 diary by Ciak for about a fiver in a special sale, but this year they've been the best part of £20 each time I've looked.
Anyway, almost as a last resort, I went into Rymans to have a look. I'd had halfway decent notebooks from there in the past and thought the diary might be okay. There were a variety of colours to choose from and the format of the diary varied according to which colour group the diary was in. The brighter colours had a pocket in the back and a vertical elastic closure. The more pastel colours had no pocket in the back and a horizontal elastic closure. Since a horizontal elastic was a 'must', I had the pastel range to choose from - not really my normal colour range, but hey. There was a navy option but I wasn't all that keen on it.
Format
The cover is a soft-touch synthetic cover. I'm not sure I would go for it again, but it's okay. I'm really trying to reduce how much synthetic anything I buy because of the ecological damage. The elastic closure is a good match to the colour of the cover and there is a metal cover-protector on the front cover (though not on the back... the back cover just has a notch in it for the elastic to slot into).
Inside, there is a year planner for January to June 2018 on the left and the rest of 2018 on the right. These pages won't be used. After that is a space for personal details, then a page with calendars for 2017 (why??) and 2019 on the left and 2018 on the right. There are then the usual information pages of clothing sizes, weights and measures, dialling codes and time differences, notable dates and UK holidays, sunrise and sunset times and moon phases. Beyond looking at these to tell you about them, I suspect I won't ever look at them again.
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| Inside cover with diaries |
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| Personal Info page |
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| More calendars |
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| Info pages |
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| More info pages |
After this comes the main part of the diary. The paper is cream (more yellow than I really like, but I was starting to think I would never get a 2018 diary!). There is a mini-calendar at the bottom of each page, but otherwise, the page is fairly simply laid out:
Line spacing is 6.5mm, with 23 full lines and 4 shorter lines next to the mini-calendar.
After all the 2018 page per day pages, there is a double-spread for telephone numbers (who uses these?), then two double-spreads of Notes pages, then 2 double-spreads for accounts - two boxes per month: paid and received. In the back cover is a year planner for 2019.
The ribbon marker is a darker blue than the cover, but complements it well. It's also a reasonable length and feels as if it might be sealed (though I always tie a knot in them anyway).
We'll see how well I like it over the year. I suspect I will buy a smaller version of my Positivity Journal for 2019, just because they are so glorious!
What's everyone got lined up for next year?
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