Monday Made Me Do It

Category: Objects With Stories

It Started With Two Gnomes

It started, as many regrettable domestic situations do, with a trip to IKEA.

It was December, many years ago. I came home with two gnomes in red hats and magnificent grey beards. They seemed harmless enough. Festive, even.

I made two mistakes.

The first was bringing them home.

The second was bringing home a pair.

The gnomes that started it all.

I never deliberately decided to become a collector of gnomes. There was no announcement, no carefully considered collecting strategy and certainly no designated shelf prepared for their arrival. One gnome simply led to another, as gnomes apparently do, until they began appearing in various corners of the house.

Then came Norway.

I travelled to the Arctic Circle in the middle of winter intending to reach Tromsø and see the Northern Lights. However, severe weather foiled my plans and I found myself stranded in Bodø for three days instead.

The weather never let up and I never saw the Northern Lights.

I did, however, come home with seven Norwegian gnomes.

Proof of nationality—and a written promise that my luck was about to improve.

Some people return from Norway with photographs of the aurora shimmering across the Arctic sky.

I returned with a small bearded delegation in pointed hats.

It was not the souvenir I originally imagined, but it was perhaps the more inevitable one.

By then, the situation had progressed beyond a harmless seasonal purchase. The original IKEA pair had become the founding members of a growing household population, joined over the years by gnomes of different sizes, shapes, and national origins.

They occupy bookshelves. They sit between books and boxes. Some stand alone with quiet authority; others gather in groups, presumably to discuss further territorial expansion.

The situation as it currently stands.

I still maintain that I did not set out to collect them.

But I also admit that whenever I see another gnome with a particularly fine beard or an unusually impressive hat, I feel compelled to consider whether there might be room for just one more.

There usually is.

September 1, 2026
The Teddy That Came With Luna

Before Luna came to us, there was Teddy.

Luna had been rescued from the streets by my cousin when she was only a few weeks old: a tiny scrap of a kitten consisting, as far as anyone could tell, mostly of enormous ears.

They were magnificent.

Completely disproportionate to the rest of her.

She looked as though someone had assembled a kitten using the correct number of parts but had accidentally selected ears from the next size up.

My cousin took her in and cared for her for the next couple of months. It was during those first few weeks of safety – after the streets and before us – that Luna met Teddy.

And apparently, she decided he was important.

By the time we adopted Luna, she had become so attached to the little stuffed pink bear that my cousin specifically asked us to bring Teddy home with her.

So we did.

Baby Luna and Teddy on the way to their new home.

Luna arrived with her enormous ears, her few months’ worth of life experience, and one piece of personal property.

Teddy.

Teddy is a small stuffed pink bear, unremarkable by the usual standards by which humans judge possessions. He is not valuable. He is not rare. He will never be displayed behind glass nor insured against theft.

But he is Luna’s.

Baby Luna with Teddy

And perhaps what makes him particularly precious is that he connects two versions of Luna: the tiny, ridiculously large-eared kitten my cousin rescued from the streets, and the cat who eventually became part of our family.

He was there in between.

Luna cuddling Teddy in her sleep.

When everything else changed – the streets, the humans, the house, the smells, the sounds – Teddy remained familiar.

I sometimes wonder if that is why she bonded with him.

We humans like to imagine that sentimentality belongs to us. We keep childhood toys, old letters, ticket stubs, dried flowers, and all manner of objectively useless things because they carry pieces of our lives.

Perhaps animals have their versions of these things too.

Perhaps Teddy smelled like safety.

Perhaps he smelled like the first place where Luna learned that food would appear regularly and nobody would hurt her.

Perhaps he was simply soft and convenient for a very small kitten to cuddle.

We will never know.

Luna isn’t saying.

Baby Luna with her enormous ears.

There is something wonderfully mysterious about the objects animals choose to love. We can buy them elaborate toys after carefully reading reviews and comparing features, only to discover that their deepest attachment is to a battered stuffed animal, an old blanket, or a cardboard box that once contained something considerably more expensive.

Affection, after all, has never been particularly interested in market value.

An object becomes important because of what happens around it.

Because it was there during naps.

Because it smells like home.

Because tiny paws once held it.

Luna in her bed with Teddy, naturally.

Because, for reasons known only to Luna, this particular little bear became part of the geography of safety.

Teddy may only be a stuffed bear to everyone else.

But he knew Luna when she was a rescued kitten with ears much too large for her head.

He accompanied her when she left one safe home for another.

And all these years later, he remains hers.

Some objects acquire value because they are rare.

Some because they are beautiful.

And some become priceless simply because, once upon a time, a tiny kitten chose them.

Luna chose Teddy.

So Teddy came home with Luna.

Luna and Teddy, still together all these years later.

August 25, 2026
The Magenta Sharpie

There are people who carry umbrellas because it might rain.

There are people who carry power banks because their phones might die.

And then there are people like me.

I carry a magenta Sharpie because of Verona.

Permanent marker, magenta. Acquired following an operational failure in Verona, Italy. Retained for future contingencies involving historically significant walls.

A couple of years ago, my daughters an I stood in Juliet’s courtyard among thousands of visitors.

Like everyone else, we wanted to leave our mark.

Not a declaration of eternal love.

Not a profound quotation.

Just our initials.

Unfortunately, the only writing instrument available at the time was a felt-tip pen with a fine nib.

It worked…

…in the same way whispering works at a rock concert.

Juliet’s Courtyard, Verona, Italy

Our tiny initials among a sea of initials.

Our tiny initials disappeared into a wall already covered with decades of names, hearts, and promises.

Somewhere on that wall is evidence that we were there.

I just couldn’t tell you where.

I remember thinking:

“If only I had a proper marker.”

That thought followed me all the way back to Malaysia.

So I bought one.

Not black.

Magenta.

Because if one is going to commit a minor act of tourist sentimentality, one may as well do it in a colour that refuses to blend politely into the background.

Ever since then, this Sharpie has travelled with me…

…although it has never been asked to write on another famous wall.

Which, if we’re being honest, is probably for the best.

And yet, every time I see it, I am reminded of Verona.

Not because our initials were particularly memorable.

But because not all souvenirs are things you buy.

Sometimes they’re habits you acquire after missing a moment.

August 7, 2026
The Pen That Thought It Was a Fighter Plane

Retro 51’s P-51 Mustang fountain pen captures the look and spirit of one of history’s most iconic fighter aircraft.

I bought a fountain pen from a pen retailer in the United States even though it came with exorbitant shipping because it looked like a P-51 Mustang.

This is not the strangest sentence I have ever written, but it is certainly in the running.

The pen is a limited-edition Retro 51 Tornado fountain pen inspired by the legendary WWII fighter aircraft. It is covered in rivets, military markings, weathered aluminium, and enough aviation detail to make any history enthusiast smile.

And yes, the rivets are real. Someone at Retro 51 was meticulous enough to think of physically indenting the rivets into the barrel. As a result, owners of the pen were able to run their fingers over the barrel and feel the aircraft skin beneath their fingers.

One of my favourite details: the rivets are actually raised, giving the pen the feel of a miniature aircraft fuselage.

I have always been drawn to objects with stories attached to them. Beautiful objects are nice. Beautiful objects that carry history are irresistible.

The P-51 Mustang was not just another fighter aircraft. Introduced during World War II, it became one of the most important aircraft of the war. Equipped with the Rolls-Royce Merlin engine and long-range fuel tanks, it could escort American bombers deep into Germany and bring them safely home.

Before the Mustang, bomber crews often found themselves unprotected once they flew beyond the range of escort fighters. German aircraft would attack the bombers, inflicting devastating losses. The Mustang changed that. It could accompany bombers all the way to their targets and back again while engaging enemy fighters along the way.

Historians generally regard it as one of the aircraft that helped the Allies gain air superiority over Europe. It was fast, dependable, heavily armed, and beloved by the pilots who flew it.

In other words, it earned its reputation.

Which is probably why I find it so appealing.

The pen itself looks as though it was assembled from salvaged aircraft parts. It has a weathered metal finish, rivet details, squadron-style markings, and even a bright checkerboard nose pattern reminiscent of those seen on wartime aircraft.

It is quite possibly, the only fountain pen I own that appears capable of escorting a formation of bombers over occupied Europe.

Unfortunately, my particular fighter plane spent several months grounded. The nib wrote poorly enough that I rarely used it, despite loving everything else about the pen. Recently, I had the nib adjusted by a nibmeister. The result was transformative.

Thankfully, it writes with ink rather than .50 calibre machine guns.

My Mustang can now fly.

I inked it with Platinum Carbon Blue, a permanent blue-black ink that seems perfectly suited to a pen inspired by military aviation.

Perhaps that is the real reason I love fountain pens. They are not merely tools. They are tiny vessels for stories.

Some tell stories about literature. Some tell stories about art. Some tell stories about travel.

And some tell stories about a fighter aircraft that helped change the course of history.

Not bad for a pen.

July 21, 2026