Tiny mechanism

When I was in school a friend had a cheap mechanical pencil and I thought it was so cool. I didn't have one and used a collection of forever going blunt regular pencils.

I think when I was in the VI form I went out and bought this cheap Parker mechanical pencil. I used it during my A levels and then at university. When I graduated I bought another nicer Parker one, but to be honest I've almost never used that one at all as it was too slippery and rather top heavy.

At work for years I used a variety of pencils, pens and yet another mechanical pencil. I make notes most days and go through phases of the instrument I use, at the moment after almost 30 years of being idle I'm back to my original cheap Parker one, picture here.

It's pretty tiny, but I could find no animal reference other than the fact the plastic will have been made from oil, which it turn is made from millions of years old dead animals...

In other news my mother-in-law went to see the Notaire today and has signed the contract on her new house, and if all goes to plan in a few months will be living less than 10 minutes from us, instead of about 2 hours. I can see a lot more dog walking duties for me coming up...!