Excuse me, do you have the time?

Yes. Yes, I have. And absolutely plenty of it. But not all of it is accurate. And certainly it all points to a compulsive personality. This collection is better evidence of that than any amount of showing you my stash! So here's my watch collection.

I've spread them out so you can see 'em a little better. Which caused me to tidy the drawer up a little, so thanks for that! Most of them are Swatch, most of them are plastic and they're all mine. It started way back in an airport and with a delayed flight. Shopping is of course, the only antidote offered by BAA. So I did. Turned out to be a really useful watch to have on holiday; waterproof, sand proof, sloppy-lotion-application proof and pretty much matching everything I took to wear. The love was kindled.

Back then, I was running my own craft shop and conducting in-store demos and workshops a lot. I felt an interesting wrist watch sort of added to that whole 'watch my hands' thing, and of course, they made me feel positively erm, arty and cool. (I know, but it's OK. I'm old enough to admit that I'm NEVER going to get over myself.) I like the designs. I like the way the pattern crosses the watch face and includes the strap in many cases. I like the slightly, lightly coloured bezels that often match the hands. I like the interpretation of a pattern applied to the watch shape. I like the big elastic bracelet types that look like glass beads. Most of all, I like the colours. I discovered that lots of cities have a big ol' Swatch store at their centres and better yet, lots of them have a dedicated city Swatch. I have one from San Francisco, Paris, Berlin, Sydney and Madrid. I have two Olympic commerative/celebratory Swatches. One of those is a 'collecter's item' sourced and gifted by my baby Sissy; I wear it anyway; I believe in enjoying what you've got, not locking it away unused. Unless it's a piece of hugely scarey patterned scrapbook paper, of course.

I've been 'collecting' for about a decade; in that time I've worked out that as I get older, I'm utterly pants at reading the time from a numberless watch face. I've also worked out that they tend to need replacement batteries in batches - and the most expensive batch is often in December and costs about 40 quid if I do them all at once. But I don't, obviously! The other revelation has been the noise that a collection of watches produce. They live in this drawer in a neat little half round hall table that Mr Dunnit made yonks ago. This table is on the landing. To be honest, it's an awkward location, but as you know, wood conducts sound. And the night time ticking of 30 odd watches was driving me mad - they aren't synchronised! I love them all, but I'm pretty much over the collecting part now. But I will probably still seek out the city Swatches, I think they're a cool, cool souvenir. There's the story then - bet you're sorry you even bothered to remark on it now!

Tomorrow, over at 2 Scrap Ladies we'll be running details of our next 'day'...do have a gander when you're surfing.