Boston Meet-up March, 2014

On March 8, a sunny and surprisingly warm Saturday, Philofaxers from all over New England converged on Bromfield Street, an narrow street in an old part of Downtown Boston. Josh and Juan came by coach from Hartford, Connecticut, and Yvonne and Doug came down from their snowy wonderland in New Hampshire. For Nan and Leilani, it was a much shorter trek from their respective Boston suburbs.

First things first. On the NYC meet-ups I've been to, we start with shopping. In Boston, we went straight to lunch. A delicious lunch—at Marilave, one of the city's oldest restaurants, dating back to 1795.

Once we placed our orders, though, it wasn't long before the Filofaxes appeared. Our waiter even commented, "You sure have a lot of leather books." He was interested in what we do with them when the year is over, expressing concern that we might through the whole leather cover away. So we showed him how the rings let you simply replace the insides.

Josh brought along a couple of his vintage, made-in-Britain, calfskin organizers, with the 5/4" rings. I got to see (and smell) some of the fabulous Gillio covers for the first time, too.

After lunch, it was a short walk to the Bromfield Pen Shop, which had a modest selection of Filofaxes and a huge selection of beautiful fountain pens and inks. I scored a purple A5 Flex cover (sadly, they had no Flex notebooks in stock) and a few vintage refills, like plain green paper and a clouded cream A-Z index.

The store has a custom display which was built into the wall by the Filofax company itself. I was hoping to see more newer models, like the Original, but there were none.

We're all hoping to do it again, maybe when the snow is gone and the 2014 models are here!

L-R Nan, Yvonne, Doug, Josh, Juan, Leilani