When I was complaining about the bleak landscape for London notebook shopping, I didn’t mention the most frustrating part of the trip! I was there on business, and during my last meeting of the trip, when I already knew it was pretty likely that I’d go home without buying anything, I spotted a really gorgeous notebook. Unfortunately it belonged to one of the people I was meeting with! It was about 4 x 6″ with a nice soft-looking black leather cover, with stitching around the edge. It looked a little beat up and worn in. It was very distracting to have that sitting across the table from me while trying to talk business! The owner of the notebook never opened it during the meeting, though he did jot a few notes in a larger Black & Red notebook. He wasn’t someone I knew well enough to be able to say, “gee, that’s a really nice notebook! Where’d you get it?” So it was just a tantalizing glimpse of possible London notebook splendor…

The other missing piece of the story is that another friend of mine, who does know me well enough to be aware of my notebook fetish, snapped these photos of notebooks and sketchbooks in London museums– probably the V&A and the British Museum, but she forgot which! The only identifying detail is a card identifying the first ones as belonging to artist Sigmar Polke.