Today with my blogging I was tempted to get deep and meaningful about things I don’t really understand e.g. the science of missing someone. However breathe as a sigh of relief as I stick to a rather lighter topic. Collecting things.

My first major collection was badges. My favourite badge I got for my sixth birthday. It was a silver holographic badge that sparkled rainbow colours in the light with a big ‘6’ on it. I loved it. This was just the first of many things I loved that were colourful and sparkly.

Then came the Trolls. I collected them wherever I could. I had small trolls, big trolls and old trolls (one my grandma had owned for a long time). They had every different colour of hair you could imagine. I must have spent a majority of my pocket money on obtaining trolls. I loved them.

Our local library had a display cabinet you could sign up to occupy for a week. One proud week I got to display my badges and my trolls. Happy times.

I collected stickers for sticker albums. I remember Snow White and Gladiators, though I didn’t complete either. The only one I did complete was my Boyzone sticker album. Which brings me onto that collection, or rather my teen obsession.

Between the ages of eleven and fourteen I adored Boyzone. Despite early on working out that Stephen Gately was gay I still hoped he might marry me, or at least be my best friend. My walls were covered in their posters. At one stage you couldn’t see an inch of wallpaper in my room, they were even on my ceiling.  I spent every last penny on magazines they were in, and I recorded every TV appearance on video. Somewhere in my childhood bedroom there are folders of magazine cuttings and videos a friend and I spent one summer cutting together of all the stuff we had on tape. Thankfully I grew out of it an appropriate age, and even more surprisingly couldn’t care less that they are back together now.

Following that I didn’t collect anything for a while. I loved sunflowers and had lots of those, but it was never a ‘collection’ as such. I suppose I did, and still do, collect leaflets and postcards of art and exhibitions I love (I have a box full) and I have always had lots of books. But that’s because I can’t bear parting with anything I have read and enjoyed.  I suppose the books I have read are a collection, and say more about me than anything else.

Six or seven years ago Boots ran a promotion. Collect vouchers and exchange them for a stuffed toy. My housemate and I put together our vouchers and became the proud owner of our Boots Giraffe. I loved the giraffe, but I am never quite sure how it got from being that one, to how ever many I own now (I have never counted them!). I think I can probably tell people where 90% of my giraffes came from, most of them anchored to specific events and places. I find myself on a giraffe hunt wherever I go.

Finally I started to collect shoes. The first pair of shoes I loved were black strappy sandals from Topshop, bought for my May Ball at the end of GCSEs in 1999. They cost £35, which was a fortune when I was 15, but I had to have them. It is an appreciation, which grew into an obsession. These days I’d say it’s more an affection. Sadly now I’m living up north the opportunities to take my beloved heels out on the town are few and far between. I can’t bear the thought of buying any more beautiful pairs for them to sit in my wardrobe and rarely see the light of day.

There is still one man who can revive my shoe obsession. That is Christian Louboutin. I can’t describe the feeling of being in the Louboutin shop in Greenwich Village, NYC. It was amazing. It was that day I bought my Simple Pump 100 in patent black, and they bring me joy every day.

There are other things I could collect, but I try not to get sucked in. Between giraffes and shoes I have more than enough to spend my money on. If I did have a third collection it would be Doctor Who stuff. But I know if I started with that I wouldn’t stop and would bankrupt myself in the process. As a teenager I dreamed of having a room full of Disney figures and toys, mainly Pixar stuff, as well as the Little Mermaid. Maybe if I have children one day I’ll have an excuse to collect those.

I can’t help but wonder what it is in human nature that makes us collect. Having a group of things that gives us pleasure from looking at or using them, or even just thinking about them and knowing they exist.