Valentine part two

I0 years old i went to France for the first time, a holiday with my family in Normandy.

Three things happened that stand out as pivotal moments in my childhood;

1. Finding a discarded flare gun (later my first and only show and tell at primary school).

2. Meeting a man in the restaurant who introduced himself to my parents as Mr Shufflebottom.

3. Seeing hundreds of abandoned bottle tops around the seats of the street café.

I think i was already blessed with the curse of collecting, there was an impressive scrapbook of train tickets past and present and an un-catalogued box of cigarette cards inherited from a well meaning, but never quite forgiven, uncle.

My original bottle top collectionn from France lived for a few years in a dusty plastic bag at the back of a drawer, until my mother finally realising that i had left home for good, cleared it out along with the rest of my youth.

I started again recently and i still don't know why or what to do with them, but here is some of the collection and since it is Valentine's day i have put my favourite, a beer bottle top from Hamburg, as close to the centre as the scanner and the elephants from Tanzania have allowed.