From moetushie, I have the following:

1. Tents:

Right at the moment, the Toronto Star is running its usual series of columns encouraging people to donate to their Fresh-Air fund to send kids away to summer camp. There's a lot of fond reminiscing along the usual lines.

Well, I remember the municipal day camp that our parents sent us to. The kids were taken by school bus from their local schools, crammed in tightly to a degree that was surely illegal, disembarked somewhere in the ravine of the Don River (not the real one!), and split into small groups of about a dozen kids the same age, each group with its own tent in a small clearing. You get what you pay for: the municipal day camp was cheap in every way. My memories are of heat, thirst, and boredom.


2. Candles:

My sister likes to have lit candles on the dining room table when there's a celebration. However, she also collects fancy candles—or, at least, she used to actively do so, and still has them in a display cabinet. She's got molded ones in fancy shapes, carved ones, ones done with layers of different colours, or with inclusions. These are definitely not for burning!

Around her birthday and Christmas I keep an eye out for any sort I don't remember her having. A fancy candle makes a good extra present.


3. Shell:

I used to collect seashells. When I was a kid, these were mostly ones my dad brought home when he'd been away at a conference; but there was a time when I bought them on holidays. Some years ago, my mother gave me a tall, skinny cabinet for them. I've not added to the collection in many years; but, as long as I have room, I've no intention of throwing them out. Some are beautiful, some are intriguing, and all are ones I've had for decades.

I've always been the collecting type. When I was a kid, it was stamps and coins, pebbles and seashells, and various inexpensive ornaments that got picked up on holidays or given to me as presents.

Nowadays, I collect small animal figurines.