STOCKPILE

Last year was a huge one for me. I'd go as far as saying the most challenging one yet. It was full of more up than downs, both deep tragedy and unexpected comfort. It's taken a while to feel normal again. All this got me pondering the meaning of life and how we collect things, whether it's stamps or coins, buttons or brooches. Often the things we hold dear don't hold the same significance to those we leave behind. As a child I collected stamps. I spent hours, removing them from old envelopes, pasting them in my albums and meticulously arranging them ( alphabetically ) in labeled envelopes. I guess looking back now I was always drawn to visual beauty. It was part of my make-up from the very beginning, so it's no surprise I ended up in a career along those lines. To this day I'm amazed at the colour and vivid details that some of the stamps possess. I found these albums from my childhood the other day.