#NewMayDays Day 24: Scriptum

I always find that the more easily accessible somewhere is to me, the less likely I am to ever take advantage of it. Scriptum's Turl Street shopfront full of globes and prints and bizarre masks has always called out to me and my love of dingy emporiums of brickabrack, but its air of a tourist snare has always put me off gracing it with my patronage. Today I sucked it up and went inside, to find that it is in fact not an eclectic mess of vintage bits and bobs but a carefully curated stationery-and-more store, with two impeccably dressed men that lurk around you on the ground floor soundtracked by ominous classical music . As uncomfortable as this alone-time with a tweed-suited Tweedlum and Tweedledee partnership made me, I was distracted by all the great things the shop has to offer - from the classy end of hand-engraved leatherbound notebooks and photo albums, to miniature hot air balloons and vintage travel stamps and stickers. And there's an entire upstairs! I spent a good half an hour in there, and even made an extortionate purchase.

Scriptum is fairly expensive to be sure, but I really recommend it be it for 21st present fodder or just for a browse of all the random old-school stuff in there - I can already feel its mini watercolours of the Bridge of Sighs calling me back.