Love/hate realtionships

Not of the human variety!!!
I was thinking more about Playmobil!
Today has seen me on my hands and knees grovelling around the floor, bending over boxes, trying to conduct a very long overdue sort of the boys Playmobil.
Now, despite the longing I have to have simplistic, waldorf, wooden toys for the boys, I happen to love Playmobil and Lego in all its guises.
But I also hate it!!!
They do have an awful lot, but them it is the accummulation of all the boys over the years...remember Tom is now 15 and we started off with a wreck of a pirate ship from a village jumble sale and a jeep with trailer and motorbikes from the village charity shop, when he was about 4 years old. They were both slightly broken with lots and lots of bits missing but it started something.
So 11 years on we now have a massive collection (but then we have no Playstation, Wii, very few computer games and no TV licence!!) of pirates including a new ship, 2 castle sets, one was second hand and one was new, circus ring,ice explorer, forest ranger, farm animals, and even a few cowboys and indians acquired from Ebay etc
I say massive but compared to other boys we know of (that go to school, I hasten to add. When do they get the time?), it is a small collection to share between two boys.
It provides hours of imaginative play, sometimes alone, sometimes together and that is not always easy with nearly a six year age gap!
I know that there are plenty of people out there who would dispute the imaginative side of the play when the little people and accessories come so complete in every little detail, but the actual playing is so imaginative.
We have used the wagon from the farm to make a covered wagon for prairie play, including cardboard canoes and teepees, the rangers are regularly planning expeditions to the North Pole and the pirates are often attacking the castles occupants!
I love the way the animals are all so smooth and rounded with movable limbs and sometimes mouths! I love the scope there is to make Zoro or Robin Hood by combining different people and I love the way that the boys narrate their own stories as they play and get lost in their own little worlds.
But, and it is a big BUT, I hate the way all the stuff gets left all over the bedroom floors as they insist they want to leave their 'little worlds' up overnight for play the following morning.
I hate the way the sets all get mixed up and then they can't find what they are looking for.
I hate the way they take hair off one man to give to another and leave him bald in the box!! or swop sword cases (there's another case for disapproval....violent toys eek!), gun holsters or neckerchiefs.
And Lego is no better!! Although it is a wondeful source of constructive and imaginative play, I really despise the way we have so many little men with dismembered bodies, no hands or hair and a whole host of little teeny tiny lights, that congregate in the bottom of the box with all the dust!! Yuk!!!
But despite this love/hate relationship, I find myself seduced in the same way as David is by all the sets and could spend an arm and a leg (lol, sorry couldn't resist that!) on the stuff!
We saw a set of indians complete with mats and papooses, and a lovely proper covered wagon (ours has the hitch part broken now)on Ebay earlier as we searching for spare parts, but how much Playmobil can one justify having?!!
If only I could sort out the storage issue, but then I have never mastered the art of clothes storage for these guys either! Oh well!