Bears

It all started when my elder brother was born.

Psychologically correct I was given my own 'baby', two little teddy-bears that I both named after my brother.

(Unfortunately these twin bears were lost somehow but my brother gave me new ones for his 21st birthday.)

Although I slept with a plush rabbit, 'bears' were always my favourite toys and have always had a soft spot in my heart.

The real collecting however started much later.

It's hard to imagine now but there were hardly any bears for sale, but for the toys, so I just bought every bear I liked. The collection grew very slowly and there was no real 'system' in it.

Years later there suddenly was a bears craze and finally I, a grownup, was 'allowed' to like bears without being called childish. Now there were so many bears in the shops that I would have been bankrupt if I'd bought them all like I did before.

Then I had a good look at my collection and decided that I would only keep and collect the ones that were just a bit life-like.

Ofcourse there are still some 'strange' bears in my collection but they live on Memory Lane.

How many do I have?

A few hundred, but there's still no end to my collecting.