Why Choose One Hobby When You Can Have Three? My Favourite Pastimes

What is your favorite hobby or pastime?

I love trying and doing new things, and over the years I’ve had brief flings with so many different hobbies. Not having time or losing interest, rarely any of them last. I’m not sure if I could chose just one as a favourite (OK, ok, it would probably be walking), but there are 3 hobbies that have stuck around through thick and thin ever since I was a child.

Walking.

I grew up walking. For a long time we didn’t have a car, and we walked to the shops. We lived rurally so it was a several mile walk, not just round the block! Having nothing near us, my siblings, and often my Mum, would walk around our local area at weekends for entertainment. Even getting to our nearest bus stop was well over a mile. At 16 I left home, got a car, and between work and now living for the first time in a built up area, walking, regretfully, just went by the wayside. Eventually I met my husband and over the years together we’ve walked on and off, spur of the moment decisions on good weather days, nothing committal. We both enjoyed it but we often made excuses as to why we couldn’t walk. Bad weather, tired, working… Then of course this summer, that all changed, and we’re making a concerted effort to make walking a part of our lifestyle, not just something to pass time on nice weather days! Feel free to subscribe if you’d like to read more about our family walks and adventures on a shoestring budget!

Drawing.

I’ve drawn for as long as I can remember. I spent most of my childhood drawing. When I left home, living by myself, I’d spend hours in the evening or weekends drawing in my bedsit. Eventually even then work and studies took up so much of my time, I forgot about it until I had my first child. During my first maternity leave I picked up a pencil again and started drawing. Mostly cars. Since then, on and off, I’ve continued to draw and develop my skills. I started off drawing with graphite pencils, then I treated myself to a set of Faber Castell polychromos colour pencils and perfected my colour pencil skills. At this time social media was really kicking off and I was inspired by many artists who used Copic markers. When my youngest was born, with with a second lot of maternity leave giving me free time again, I bought some Copics and decided to give them a go. Wow the result was awful! I squirreled the pens away in shame and forgot about them for a year or so, before trying them again. This time something clicked, and I was really pleased with my drawing. Now I only use Copics and colour pencils, a mixed media style, but I still don’t draw often. It’s time consuming (takes me around 20-25 hours for an A3 drawing) and work (and walking) take up so much time already. But it’s one of those hobbies I know will stay with me forever, it’s been a part of my life since I could hold a pencil, and I’ll always have my Copic markers and sheets of paper to hand when I do find the time.

Photography.

I love being creative. I’m not saying I’m any good at being creative, but I always enjoy creative activities. When I was around 8 or 9 I was given an old wet film camera, and I had a whale of a time taking photos with it. It wasn’t a fancy camera, and eventually I used all the films that came with it, and my parents couldn’t afford to replenish them (or develop them) so my brief fling with photography came to an end. When I went to college I added a photography course to my list of studies and I absolutely loved it. We used wet film and learned to develop it ourselves. We learnt manual editing techniques in the developing room and then eventually progressed to digital. It meant I could use the college cameras and during this time I learnt how to use the camera in manual mode and played around with all sorts of experimental photography techniques. It was a fun year, and when I moved on I saved up and got my first, used, DSLR. Over the years, much like my drawings, photography has bobbed in and out of my life. I love experimental photography and have collected different bits of lighting equipment that don’t really get used now. Having children means I can no longer disappear late in the evening in the dark to muck around with the camera, but I’ve kept everything because I know that one day the boys will be old enough to come out with me, and we can hopefully have fun together trying different things. Until then, I tend to just take the camera to special occasions or special trips. I know I should use it more, and I really must take it on our walks. A lot of my lenses are bulky, long and heavy, which puts me off taking the DSLR, but yesterday I decided to take my 50mm lens. Other than my fisheye, it’s my smallest lens but it takes wonderful photos. No zoom means I’ll have to really think about the photos I take, but it could add a fun dimension to our walks. It’s going to take a while to become reacquainted with all the settings though!

Yesterday. Yesterday we went for a walk, and our neighbours joined us again. My eldest was keen to show them the walk he’d planned and lead from last week. Since this meant I’d have no new blog post to write, I decided to take my camera and see if I could take some nice photos to share instead. It didn’t quite work out as I’d planned, we were all too busy chatting, but I got a couple! It was quite by luck that today’s prompt talked about hobbies, and it’s tied in nicely with my not-a-new-walk post!

Do you have any of these hobbies?