December reflections 2: My Favourite Hobby

This domain is called woolgathering. There may be a little clue there…

…and yet…

May I confess that I have done no real knitting for over three years and that although I bought a new spinning wheel after we settled into this house I haven’t spun anything at all?

Honestly, I don’t believe that I have a hobby any longer. I scacely seem to take any photographs, do very little cooking, precious little reading.

Even travel is more a lifestyle than a hobby as we spend around half the year on the road, pandemics permitting..

What can I claim as a hobby now – eating out?

SKIRT-PURCHASING?! I think that may be a new addiction but it’s scarcely a hobby.

But this is a timely prompt for me. I left my bed today with the intention of investigating what remains of my stash. Regular readers will know that my stash of yarns and fibre was redistributed at the time that we swapped our rambling property in Orkney for a home on four wheels. There is little room in a motorhome for anything other than essential items but I did fill one crate for my continuing amusement whilst travelling.

Then we downsized again. got a smaller van, and I had to lose most of what remained of my stash.

What I kept was precious to me and I have hoarded it but knitting and spinning just have not happened. I have been carrying two half-knitted pairs of socks around Europe with me for four years now. I make occasional progress of a few rounds on one or the other and I did cast on a Baktus earlier this year and occasionally make small progress on it. A second scarf that I cast on this year does not please me and I believe will make no further progress.

It’s not really lack of interest but I think a combination of lack of time, lack of somewhere suitable and comfortable to sit and knit, lack of proper spectacles (I sat on them and am making do with cheap plastic readers), plus the fact that my hands become ever stiffer and more painful.

The time thing is interesting. Yes, I am retired. I have (at least in theory) all the time in the world now but what I also have is a retired husband and I find that we spend our time together. I no longer have the hours and hours in which to please myself that I had in Orkney, when he was working full time. I do spend far too much time online though.

Overnight I had decided to restructure my time, change what I am doing with it, get some knitting out and see if I can still manipulate the needles. I have on my agenda for today an item that says “clear out the drawer with the stash and find out what’s in it”. I also have an idea that one of the pairs of socks-in-progress will look fine and dandy with one of my new Sari Skirts and that I should complete that project.

A modest collection of sock yarns from Germany. A good job that we didn’t stay longer!

I did add to my stash this year. We have been to Germany twice this year and, well, what’s a girl to do – they sell Sock Yarn in the supermarkets!

It would appear that possibly my only remaining hobby is purchasing sock yarn and doing nothing with it.

(Those two at top on the left… an Aestlight shawl, I thought?)

Entree at Turckheim

For so many years my automatic response to today’s prompt would have been, pure and simply: “knitting.” I no longer feel that is true. I don’t feel that I have a hobby any longer, not one of my own. We do however share a hobby and that appears to be the identification of fine restaurants and travelling across Europe to go and dine at them. Is that a hobby? Really?

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