Philofaxy Mini-Meet Up - Poitiers - 13 Dec 2011

So it was a wet and windy on Tuesday morning, when headed down to Poitiers, which takes us about an hour on a good day. But with gusting wind and sweeping rain it took a little longer.

All the effort was worth it. The sun did shine a few times during the day, and Nikki had a big smile on her face when she recognised 'Philofaxy Steve'!!! We had managed to arrange a mini meet up on a date when Nikki was going to be in Poitiers on business, so it all worked out very well.

We met in Pub Le Gambetta, a small bar/cafe in Rue Gambetta. We had a long chat, poured over Filofaxes, had some food. Just like any other Philofaxy meet up, even if there was only three of us... Nikki, Alison (The hand of Philofaxy!) and Steve.

For those of you interested (of course you are!) Nikki is showing me her Hampstead A5, which she uses as her main Filofax and she has some very nicely designed section dividers and loads of self printed information pages. Nikki also uses the Filofax Address Book Software, which is how the idea of a meet up came about! I was interested so see how she is using the software in her A5, I might copy a few of her ideas... Nikki had also made her own 'Today' markers, she is very creative. Nikki is using an A5 DodoPad in her Filofax, nice and colourful. I will have to twist her arm, I mean gently ask her to do a guest post on her full set up once Christmas and New Year is out of the way......

I had taken along my A5 Malden with my 2012 set up in it, the current crimson Personal Malden, with a sneak peak at another 2012 set up, which you saw yesterday... My Chameleon Pocket was with me as well of course and as you can see the Filofax Facts book also found it's way in to my small messenger bag (My man bag got left at home!)

Once we had finished our traditional long French lunch, Nikki took us on a mini tour of the two Filofax stockists in the same road, the first opposite the cafe... All those people that have attended London meet ups will be at this point booing me, because of the long walk we take from Tate Modern to Neal Street... but I digress....

This is just the stationary part of Gibert Joseph, that small entrance opens out in to an Aladdin's cave of stationary, Filofax, and planners and diaries of every size and make you can think of! We kept finding more and more Filofax stuff tucked away on shelves in different parts of the shop!  Their stock of inserts was very good. The range of organisers was a little limited but plentiful in numbers... no Apex's, oh how disappointed were we..  We both picked up Filofax France catalogues too... good bedtime reading! I will compare it to the UK one soon and do a post if I find any astounding differences.

We then took a short walk up the road to Poitiers Stylos this is more of a pen shop than a stationary store, but they did have a very nice range of Filofax organisers on display behind glass, and in the window. With a stock of inserts just inside the door.

Again not an Apex to be seen, we were shocked and disappointed!

Sadly time had marched on quicker than we thought and we had to say our good byes and we went off to return home. It was great to meet up with another reader of the blog and one that is 'local' to me here in France...

Thank you Nikki, it was great meeting up with you and hopefully we can have another meet up when the sun is shining in Spring/Summer and may be we will discover some more readers within reach of Poitiers.