Stationery shopping may be the finest form of procrastination – but who can resist the joy of a perfect pen? | Jodi Wilson

It's back-to-school time, which means nostalgia for covering books in contact and spending way too long in the notebook aisle

As a child of the 90s, my summers were spent splashing in the neighbours' overly chlorinated pool and flicking through the back-to-school stationery catalogue. I circled the essential items, categorised my needs and wants, and cross-referenced them with the list the school had provided. I marked stationery shopping" on my calendar - an annual highlight - and counted down the days.

Despite the heat and humidity - the least conducive weather conditions for covering exercise books in sticky contact - my mother would take deep breaths and carefully coat each one in whatever print I'd chosen. She used a ruler to remove the bubbles while I dreaded the very real possibility that I'd have to live with ugly folds on my school books for a whole year. I'm the first-born daughter - that kind of imperfect would never do.