The waterproof notebook

Text: an original contemporary personal account-style practice extract.

During a wet morning counting birds at the estuary, I appreciated my new notebook’s pages because the drizzle did not soften them into pulp. I also liked the cover’s rigid back, which supported the pages while I wrote standing up. I used a pencil, and my handwriting was less tidy than it would have been at a desk. The notebook did not keep my sleeves dry or stop the birds moving before I had counted them. It simply allowed me to preserve my notes under conditions that had ruined my ordinary exercise book.

From the extract, give two features of the notebook the writer appreciated.