Are you feeling a little bored of life lately? Do you feel like you’ve lost the passion and spark that you once had? It sounds like you need to get a hobby. Hobbies come in all different forms, but something that is increasing in popularity, is collecting. Collecting things is a popular pastime for all kinds of people around the world. Some people collect dolls, other people collect stamps. One man who decided he needed a hobby decided to begin collecting marbles – and his obsession really took off!
Mike Holland, husband of Dale Husband who has spoken openly about her husband’s obsession, recently revealed just how big his marble collection had grown. He would travel all over to find marbles. He’d go to car boot sales, charity shops, thrift stores, and even auctions in search of these little colourful balls.
He didn’t pick them all up at once though. Mike enjoyed collecting marbles so much, he would just pick up a few here and a few there. However, a few marbles quickly turned into a hundred marbles. A few hundred marbles quickly turned into a few thousand. Eventually, Mike ended up with a total of 200 thousand marbles!
Dale and Mike recently moved home, bagging all of the marbles up with them. How many bags did it take to hold all of the marbles? 600! That’s right, 600 entire bags of marbles. Mike used to love it when visitors came to the house, because the first thing he would do is proudly show them his collection. Everybody seemed very impressed. Some people enjoyed looking at the marbles because they reminded them of their youth. After all, plenty of people used to enjoy playing marbles at school. One woman who saw the huge collection told how she came from a long line of marble players. Shockingly, over 50% of people in the UK don’t have any hobbies at all. This could be down to technology. After all, many of us our living our lives online more than ever before.
Unfortunately, Mike is receiving care for dementia at the moment and his wife has sadly sold his collection to help foot the bill for everything. She said she would never sell the entire collection though; she’s kept some of them to remember what Mike used to be like and what he used to like.
Despite the sad ending to this story, collecting can be a wonderful hobby. It doesn’t matter what you choose to collect, be it dinky cars or post cards. Everybody should have a hobby. We all need to take a tip from Mike, put down the smartphone and tablet, and find something we love to do. Something that we feel passionate about.
Do you have a hobby that you feel passionate about? Will you make an effort to find things you enjoy doing now, rather than just letting life happen? Only we have the power to change our lives and enjoy them. Don’t wait for life to get better, make it better yourself.
