This was one of those purchases made between COVID-19 lockdowns on a very quick trip to my local Primark; where it caught my attention and I dropped one in the basket.
Since that day I hadn’t seen it and it was only when I was reluctantly tackling the need to tidy up that I came across a pile of ‘for review’ items and in amongst them I found the notebook and pen set.
The notebook and pen are nicely packaged in a card box which has a large clear plastic window which affords you an excellent view of the contents and at the top of the box it has a gold-coloured cord handle.
Inside the box the A5 notebook and gold wand are in a black flock covered tray. The notebook cover is a dark navy blue and, on the back, at the bottom of the cover, are the usual copyright notifications. But what really caught my attention was the front cover design; inside the gold border is a gold compass design with each of the four houses occupying a point of the compass and in the centre of the compass is Hogwarts. As notebook cover designs go this one is something special, you can see that a lot of thought went into creating the design.
There is an elastic closure for the notebook, which is surprisingly sturdy and, will, I think remain reliable for the life of the notebook. It is the type that is glued under the flyleaf to the inside of the back cover. When I ran my finger over the inner back cover it was barely noticeable so it shouldn’t be an inconvenience when you get to the last few pages.
Front and rear the flyleaves are dark grey and blend well with the dark blue outer cover. The actual notebook is built from stitched sections which are glued to the front and rear covers using the flyleaves which means the notebook will lie flat when opened; I tried this at various points in the notebook and it does stay flat, so there should be no difficulty using the full width of the pages.
The pages are lined bright white paper and the lines are quite fine and are spaced at approximately 8mm. There is no indication on the packaging of how many pages/sides there are, but I would guess around 100/200 respectively.
Finally, I tested the paper to see if it is fountain pen friendly; I picked a random page, wrote some words and I am very pleased to say that there was no hint of ink on the reverse. The most I got was a hint of ghosting but nothing that would affect use of the reverse side of the page so I would be happy to say this notebook is FP friendly.
As for the wand pen, it’s the standard small version of Harry’s wand but it is nice to add a gold wand to the collection.
I definitely recommend this notebook and wand set; so, when the stores eventually reopen if they still have stock, and the price is still reasonable, then pick up a few; either for yourself or for the Harry Potter fans you know.
Disclaimer: The notebook and pen set was purchased with my own funds at retail price. The opinions expressed in this review are my own; and I am not connected with either the retailers or manufacturers in any way.
The Indian Marmalade Company 