Making Time For Hobbies

Back when I was younger my hobbies included refining my yoyo skills, reading the entire collection of Sweet Valley High books after school that I’d borrowed from the library, being a part-time singer/songwriter/fashion-designer (my Mum has kept some of my clothing creations that I’d drawn out and they are all predictably cropped and in a neon colour – how ’90’s child of me) and going through every single CD-ROM that we had of Encarta 97. Hobbies were a thing. I dedicated time to them and enjoyed picking up new skills and honing old ones.

These days I find myself surgically attached to my phone and/or laptop for a significant part of the day and if I’m not scrolling or typing away at something I find myself slumped in front of Netflix balancing a pack of Dairy Milk buttons on my belly, chowing down and actually having a rather good time. However, I’ve been trying it mix it up recently and have attempted to pour some time into extracurricular activities. Here’s what I’ve picked up so far…

Calligraphy

You can read more about my first experience of putting nib to paper here, but over the past couple of weeks I’ve been trying to practice as much as I can and despite a couple of ink stains here and there on bits of furniture that I’ve so far managed to hide from Mark with strategically placed candles, I’ve found myself getting marginally better at it. The most important word there being ‘marginally‘. It’s definitely not something that comes naturally to me as it’s literally like learning the alphabet all over again and it’s hard not to break out your normal handwriting. But overall it’s a soothing activity which I like to do in complete silence because I’m so fun and chill like that and it stops me twiddling around with my phone which is always a good thing. If you fancy taking it up, I highly recommend visiting Quill London for supplies. Mark ordered some Birthday presents for me from there and said delivery was nice and speedy.

Reading

The holiday that I went on with my sister and my mates last month basically consisted of us laying on sun loungers, reading books and turning ourselves around on the hour, every hour, like rotisserie chickens. ‘Time to do our fronts ladies!’. Don’t worry we SPF-ed up and dipped into the pool when I felt like I was being put under a grill. It was rather glorious and all of us went through multiple books and then swapped them around after we read them. I’m pretty sure that I’ll never see Me Before You by Jojo Moyes ever again. I also read ‘The Girl Who Came Back’ by Susan Lewis, that my friend Lauren leant me and it was great. I’ve realised that I like semi-thriller kinda books although I’m also partial to a good old fashioned romance, so if anyone has any recommendation, I’m all ears.

Hot Yoga

Now this isn’t something that I’ve yet to pick up as there’s a hot yoga studio near me that does a fab deal on a month’s worth of unlimited classless for new starters and October is CRAZY, so I think I’m going to save this one till November when I have a bit more time on my hands. But I’ve been thinking about incorporating hot yoga into my workout routine for months. I put it off for the summer because the thought of being in a hot and stuffy studio when it was equally hot and stuffy outside made me want to vom, but I like the idea of being warmed up a bit in the winter and getting a bit more flexible. Last time I tweeted about hot yoga I got some rather hilarious replies. One which really stuck in my mind was a story of this poor lady passing out and letting out a big long fart at the same time. Whilst this terrifies me, it intrigues me too. Should I wear a helmet incase I pass out? Can my butt cheeks clench enough to keep all my gasses in? Any other hot yoga anecdotes I should know about?

Photos by Lauren Shipley