I have a tendency to build small stockpiles. I get into a thing, and before I know it I have accumulated a stockpile of that thing, and have to force myself to stop buying that thing in order to use up the stacks of thing that I gathered during my initial fascination.

Shaving soap

In 2019 I started shaving using a double-edged safety razor. I foolishly subscribed to a pertinent subreddit, and exposed myself to the immense collections of some of the people on that subreddit. A little bit of that acquisitiveness rubbed off on me, and my desire for various shaving soaps quickly got out of hand. My stockpile is now probably big enough that it will keep me going for the rest of my life. I hasten to add, it’s far from the largest collection that I’ve ever seen. But it’s still too big for my own needs. I also have three shaving brushes and two razors, where one of each would be ample.

Notebooks

I’ve always been quite impartial to a nice notebook, but at some stage I must have switched from buying notebooks when I needed one, to buying them whenever I saw one that appealed to me. I now have a stack of fifteen unused notebooks, and that’s just the A5 ones. I have even more, of different sizes, in a drawer. At the rate I get through them, I think I’ve probably got at least enough to last me a decade.

Snacks

Once upon a time I came up with the idea of keeping a snack or two in my desk drawer in case I get peckish while I work. Naturally, it doesn’t take long before this becomes “I must have a diverse range of snacks in my desk drawer that would put a school tuck shop to shame.” Upon realising that this has happened, I then make a conscious effort to run down the stocks to bring things back to a sensible level. After a short while, my memory resets, and the whole cycle repeats itself. Right now I’m in a fairly sensible place, with just two flapjacks and a small chocolate bar in the stash, but I’m sure it won’t last.

Hot Chocolate

This is my latest obsession. Karen bought me a Hotel Chocolate Velvetiser for Christmas. I’d always poked fun at them, partly because of the dumb-ass name, and partly because it seemed like the kind of thing that is done by a struggling company desperate to find a new revenue stream. Well, turns out, it’s actually a really good piece of kit. Over the last few weeks, every time I’m in a supermarket I gravitate towards the chocolate section and assess the products for how well I think they’d work in a drinkable format, and this has resulted in a few purchases that I wouldn’t otherwise have made. The other day we turned a bar of Lindt “Mint Intense” into three mugs of hot chocolate and it was delectable. This could get out of hand very quickly.