As most people will know Robbie has an over-active collecting gene. As well as all the usual things such as railway related items, model trains, books. shoes, ties, bags and countless other things, Robbie also collects Lego mini figures.
Sometimes I buy him two or three mini figures, but he rations himself and only makes one at a time. Each figure comes in a sealed bag so it is a bit of a guessing game about the contents and he gets so excited when he opens the bag to find a figure that he hasn't already got. He sits at the table and builds his mini figure, then he gets everyone to admire it, then more often than not he posts a photo of the latest figure on Facebook. I know it is a bit weird, but it is fairly harmless and it keeps him out of trouble (for a little while at least!).
An Wednesday when I got home from work I noticed that he had a batch of mini figures lined up. I thought it was a bit odd, but I didn't comment on it, nothing much surprises me where Robbie is concerned! The subject of mini figures didn't crop up until later on when we were on our own, but I noticed that Robbie kept glancing at the figures with a rather odd expression, almost as if he was angry with them. Eventually Robbie called me over and pointed to the artist figure. I looked, but clearly I was missing something because Robbie kept on pointing. He told me that someone had made one of his unopened mini figures and then lined all the figures up on the table. I told him that it was unlikely, perhaps he had just forgotten about the artist, but apparently Robbie (and elephants) never forget!
If it was a conspiracy there was only one suspect, the son who must not be named. The following evening I asked if he had been involved in the mini figure conspiracy. He laughed so much, but when he stopped laughing he explained that he had found our dog Meg chewing the mini figure pack, so he took it away from her, rescued the pieces, cleaned them up and then built the Lego man so that the pieces didn't get lost. So it wasn't really a conspiracy, it was a rescue.
You would think that after this long Robbie's capacity to surprise me would have diminished considerably, but you would be wrong! The other day he read out a comment that he had made on the facebook status of one of his friends, it didn't make much sense to me but that wasn't a surprise, train spotters (sorry I mean railway enthusiasts!) seem to talk to each other in code most of the time. The comment in question was about hiding a pair of trainers under the bed, that seemed relatively normal to me compared to some of the things that are hidden under our bed, but Robbie seemed to find it funny. Eventually he explained that his friend was a trainer collector and he had to hide new purchases because they were taking over the house. It still didn't seem very funny to me, after all I spend my life tripping over Dr Marten boots with a few pairs of Converse thrown in for good measure. I pointed out that people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, but that just made him fold his arms and stick out his lower lip.
That little incident set me thinking, Robbie knows some 'interesting' people including a plane spotter, an escalator spotter, a roundabout spotter (the road type not the fairground ride), several bus spotters, a couple of closet milk float spotters and a whole legion of train spotters. Then there are the obsessive collectors, some collect train parts or railway related stuff, there is the trainer collector and various other hoarders. Robbie collects railway books, magazines, model railway stuff, cuff links, ties, pens, stationary - and that is only the things that I am prepared to admit to in public. The big question is where does he meet all these people? Hoarders anonymous perhaps or maybe there is a social networking site for extreme spotters or possibly they have some sort of secret handshake like the masons. One things is certain, when it comes to the weird and the wonderful, birds of a feather flock together!
Has anyone noticed how many wild rabbits there are this year? I counted more than fifty in a ten minute journey recently. This population explosion was the subject of a discussion in the car several weeks ago, Sam couldn't work out how the boom in the bunny population had occurred. In the course of the conversation Robbie had to explain the meaning of the term 'at it like rabbits'. Sam found this new insight hilarious, he is 12 after all. Like me Sam is an avid collector of words and sayings and he has managed to weave his new found knowledge about the prodigious reproductive capacity of rabbits into almost every conversation. I will have to find him another word or phrase to take his mind off rabbits, you can have too much of a good thing!
As most people will know Robbie has an over-active collecting gene. As well as all the usual things such as railway related items, model trains, books. shoes, ties, bags and countless other things, Robbie also collects Lego mini figures. 
