A Collection Of Collections : A Theme Thursday Retropective

Last week it was my pleasure to host Theme Thursday where the subject was Collection. My busy weekend at the Marsden Jazz Festival meant that I was not able to get to visit many of the fifty or so contributions and so I thought that the least I could do - as a good host - was to look back at this wonderful collection of blog posts on the theme of collection. This then , is a Theme Thursday Retrospective. If I have missed out your post I apologise, but I have tried to get around to as many contributions as I could find.

My tour of blogs underlined the fact that there seems to be some kind of relationship between blogging and collecting. Most of us seem to be collectors of one type or another. Caffeinated Joe collects horror movies and books (well, you would expect him to wouldn't you), whilst Dave at My Power Is Beyond Your Understanding introduced us to the strange world of baseball memorabilia. Imagine if someone collected clothes : nonamedufus did and Betsy at My Five Men wrote about collecting vintage aprons. Roy Hilbinger (Roy's World) was a great collector and not surprisingly many of his collections centred on music and musical instruments. Jasmine at Natures Whispers was another collector of all things musical. Coffee Messiah shared with us a couple of collections he has been close to over the years which range from circus history to local history. Books, cats and art from Panama were three of the collections featured by e at Life In Progress whilst Mouse at Mouse Medicine is a serial collector who gave us photographs of her many collections.

As you would imagine, there were some strange collections out there. Rhonda at Social Dyslexic is a serial collector whose past interests have included salt and pepper shakers. Chris Wolf at Piano Posts spoke of her Wall of Inspiration which contains a collection of autographs from famous performers which provide inspiration to her music students. VE at Fantastical Nonsense shared his understanding of what it means to be a serious collector and he knows because it appears that he has one of the largest collections of coloured crayons in the world. Tony at Bench collected Rugby League programmes and - for some strange reason - old photographs of Rochdale Turkish Baths. He gave us wisdom by suggesting that maybe we collect the past to better dream the future. Lettuce at Lettuce Eating collected stones - and fascinated she made it sound - whilst mmm at Hot Toast and Jam collects memories but also collects sugar packs. Leah at The Weather In The Streets collects - amongst other things - dish cloths! but it was California Girl (Empty Nest Evolution) who came up with perhaps one of the strangest collections - a collection of Pumpkin People.

CatLady Carew told us about her collection od trains and her collection of beer bottles - now that is what I call a collection - whilst Holly at Christmas Whimsy's let us see her wonderful glass Christmas ornaments - quite a collection. Kayren at Everything's Coming Up Daisies has an amazing collection of dolls she shared with us. Trisha from Second Thoughts has a long list of things she collects which range from apothecary jars through to tobacco tins. Liza at They will Not Have Me is a rock and shell collector and she has some great images of some of her finds.

For many, their collections were less tangible. Nicole at Super Blogliness gave us a collection of words - and quite a collection it was. Dreamhaven at Tangled Webs may collect Betty Boop items but she gave us a splendid poem entitled The Heart Collector. Subby at Basstuna played with words in his own inimitable way and managed to get a rhyme or two (or three or four) out of the theme of collection. Jill at Killeny Glen gave us a wonderful take on the theme of collection which seemed to bring so many joyous thoughts and actions into such a short post.

And there were, of course, the weavers - those bloggers who so inventively manage to weave the theme into a continuing and developing story.  Jaime at Red Red Whine wove the theme into the latest episode of her wonderful story "When the Past Comes Back To Haunt You". But what did Jim collect? You will have to read the story to find out! Brian Miller at Waystation One gave us his usual insightful look at life - "our lives take on the stories we choose to collect" AngelMay at Growing Pains wove the theme of collecting into one of her charming stories and Sharon at Moxie Blue managed to kill three birds with one stone post and provided us with a fine collection of sketches. Tom (Half Moose With A Twist) cleverly incorporated the theme into his evolving Cinquain (and if you don't know what one of them is take a look at his blog). And Otin at Wizard of Otin gave us a spine-chilling story that weaved the theme in at several different levels. Brenda at BryAntics gave us a verse - of course - a wonderful one called The Collector

And the collections go on and on. Dot Com was unable to tell us about her collections because an unfortunate collection of work got in the way. Skip Simpson at Skip's Stuff got very inventive and combined his well known video-making talents with his less well-known talents as a lyricist and provided us with some memorable images of Autumn. The Revelationist at Gut-Wrenching Real revealed that he was "a collector of memories; rediscovering the simple pleasures of who I was and what I did that make me who I am".And Jeffscape at Irreverent Irrelevance gave us a sad but true story of how his collection of dogs had been broken as two had gone missing - but the good news is that they are now back with their owner.

Kris at This Will Hurt Me somehow had a collection around the theme of phallus which I am still trying to understand, but fear not, the accompanying picture was of a fine looking plant! For Candie at The Ancient Sword the idea of collection puts her in mind of one of her favorite movies - Perfume. Baino (Baino's Banter) claims not to be a collector but still provided us with a thumping good post on shoe collections. Meg at All I Need Is Everything gave us wonderfully descriptive memories of when she was little and used to help count the Church collection. Kylie at Eclectica told us about how her son was on a trip to China visiting a handicraft centre with a collection of girls. Sandra at "Amazing Voyages Of The Turtle" collects actors whereas  Jelly at Not For Jellyfish has a collection of men - but be warned - only a certain kind of man.

Let me leave you with Kate (Life With A Cocktail) who had a collection of thoughts about collections and summed up by saying "I think that's the best part of Theme Thursday: reading the collection of various thoughts, ideas, and stories on a single subject". I couldn't have put it better myself. 

A big thank you to all who took part.