I am not going to take up another hobby

but I can still take an interest in things other people do as hobbies. There is a difference!

Recently a friend of mine spun some yarn for me. It is something she learned to do after she retired. She had planned to do this. Now, some years down the learning track, she actually spins very well indeed. She spins as well as people who have been doing it for many years. It was something she wanted to do and, being one of those highly intelligent people, she approached the task with thought and preparation. She went to classes. She belongs to a group. She enjoys the process. 

I think that's the entire point. She enjoys what she is doing. It really is a hobby. There is no pressure there.

Other people I know have other hobbies. They pursue them with varying degrees of enthusiasm.  There are people who have "taken up" an activity intended to be a hobby and let it lapse for a long period. Later they have gone back to it. 

Other people do not return to an initial enthusiasm at all. They have tools and other equipment languishing in their sheds and work rooms. The materials have been given away or thrown out.

The late Senior Cat had hobbies which he pursued with enthusiasm. His garden was important but so was his woodworking shed.  It was not just family who benefitted from the food he grew and the things he made. He loved handling timber and working with it. Designing and making conjuring apparatus was a challenge. Indoors he read widely and taught conjuring, study skills and English. He retained his intellectual capacities to the end of his long life and made the most of them.

I hope I can do the same. I do not see "writing" as a hobby. It is an essential part of my being, of my existence. That does not mean there are not days when the idea of writing a blog post does not appeal. No, sitting down to write one is a different thing altogether. It is not the same as writing about the "cathedral cats". I can think about the cats while I am pedalling out and about and I think I would miss them. Saying goodbye to other characters has been very difficult. 

I knit and I crochet. I do not claim to be an expert craftsperson but I enjoy it. I gave up using other people's patterns at around age sixteen. This was not because I am particularly good at knitting or crochet. It is because the challenge is in the design and "seeing if that works" and "what if..." and more. I want to make some buttons to go on the next projects. I have tried one or two ideas and I think I can do it. It won't be easy but that is part of the process. I am impatient to get back to them. 

The reason I have not? There was the state's "Show" and I had things planned for that. In all likelihood it is the last time I will enter anything. I also had the other project I wrote about a short time ago. It involved a hobby but it was done as a "thank you". Next week I will pass it on to someone else to finish. It is one of the rare occasions on which I wish I could sew and do the whole thing myself. Nevertheless it is done and I can think about buttons and other things.

And there is the project the knitting and crochet group at the library is planning. It will involve work but it is related to hobbies I enjoy.

In between I might manage to read a great many more books about all sorts of things...and I suppose I might find a new hobby?