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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sancho" data-source="post: 1302514" data-attributes="member: 27039">Enjoy you´re trip out with the dogs, Neil! Hope the cold vanishes. (Try nibbling a clove of raw garlic). :t:It has occurred to me that Binocular Obsession, and the purchase of too many bins, is a rather unhealthy method of staving away the blues/depression etc. (not sure I like the word "depression" because it implies a clinical condition that "healthy" or "normal" people never have, whereas in fact into every life a little rain must fall etc. etc.). Anyway, I know that some people are "shopaholics", and shop to ward off the blues. I´ve often heard friends of the female persuasion say that buying shoes, for example, keeps them happy. And I remember years ago listening bemused as Princess Sarah Ferguson claimed on TV that she´d gotten into massive debt because she was depressed and got addicted to shopping. I´ve read that Kleptomaniacs and "Hoarders" suffer from a similar problem, and their behaviour is an anti-depressive coping mechanism. Now, however, I stare at my stupid binocular collection and wonder if it´s the same kind of thing. The maximum number of binoculars that anyone can argue for is three (low mag, high mag, and compacts). But I think I´m addicted to buying binoculars, and of course this has an adverse effect....I feel guilty and wasteful for having seven pairs, even though buying each one was so much "fun".</blockquote>