How many? If any.

Time to time my children count their hobbies. Yes, count, not simply talk or discuss those, because it’s not about what kind of hobbies they have, but HOW MANY as they think they should have an equal number of interests. They think everything should be fair despite of me telling them bluntly: “Life is not fair!” I would have thought they’d learnt that by now, and that I don’t have to tell them something so obvious anymore, because I’m certain I’ve taught them how life can be unfair in many different ways.

Oh, and their hobbies really mean the after school clubs they take, rather than all the things they are into. For example, cycling and reading wouldn’t count as their hobbies as they go neither to the cycling nor reading club, although they do (and enjoy) the latter more regularly and often than the after school clubs. And occasionally I explain them that even building machines/things out of Lego could be a hobby and then add incidentally when I was a kid how I used to collect little pocket calendars and sweet wrappers and stamps and.. this list could go on... Now I wish I could find my stamp collection! I could probably make a fortune on eBay… or just show these to the children. Maybe they would get my point of having different interests than just the clubs, if they saw my collectables, but unfortunately I left all these valuables behind in Estonia. I guess the longer it takes me to find these sweet wrappers, the better, because obviously their value is raising steadily and increasingly.

I was also quite an avid collector of stickers.

Also I have to admit that when I lived in Estonia I wouldn’t have called ‘walking’ as my hobby, although I did it daily, it involved long-ish distances (for example once when I was 15 I had my appendix removed and when the day arrived to go home, I found out that my dad couldn’t get away from work to pick me up straight away and I was supposed to wait until the evening. I wasn’t happy as I wanted to leave the hospital, but I was suddenly full of determination. So I just discharged myself and walked home these few kilometres, anyway some days had already passed since the surgery and these black stitches looked tight enough. I arrived home safe and sound, just to find my mum’s handwritten note on the kitchen table telling other family members that she’d gone to collect me from the hospital by bus).

Anyhow I guess in Estonia walking was more about getting from one place to another, rather than a purposeful walk in the woods or around the reservoir or somewhere else where you could also enjoy the view. And I certainly didn’t have a pair of walking boots, neither had ever heard of the gaiters before I met Matt and when we were in the middle of planning our first holiday together. It undoubtedly involved days out walking. So now with my modest walking gear I can honestly name this as one of my pleasurable activities, as one of my hobbies. And for my luck there’s a heartbreakingly beautiful place in our local Tring Park that reminds me of Estonia with its tall pine trees, and not far from there, up the hill in the woods every spring there’s another special place where wood anemones blossom. Definitely worth a walk to admire these.

And additionally, but not traditionally to my usual notes, I’m asking from you – what is your hobby?