#52Stories, Week 9, What were your favourite hobbies and pastimes from childhood ? Are you still pursuing any of them ?

I'm swapping week 9 & 10 around while I do some research on what is now week 10's topic.

Pastimes and hobbies is the topic for week 9.

I collected stamps for a while, diligently soaking them off the envelopes and putting them in to a stamp album. There were lots of letters and bills arriving in people's letterboxes then. Not so much now, except at Christmas. So I imagine stamp collecting must be a fast disappearing hobby. Dad collected stamps too - there are suitcases of them waiting forlornly for someone to sort them or sell them, or just look at them without feeling overwhelmed by the sheer size of the task.

I had piano lessons, belonged to a gymnastics club and a roller-skating club. I joined Brownies.I drew house plans on the spare plan paper Dad bought home from work. I knitted, sort of. 

Mum and Nana both knitted and were willing teachers, even when I dropped stitch after stitch for rows on end and sometimes made more stitches than required instead. I think the first garment I completed myself was a striped longline jumper with an oversized polo neck when I was about 14.

I wrote letters (it fed my stamp collection) and collected penfriends around the world and across New Zealand too. Mataura, Milton, Nelson and further afield Mauritius, Switzerland, France, Japan, Rhodesia (yes I am that old - Zimbabwe now), England, USA, Australia. Apart from friends and family I only correspond with one penfriend these days. Debby from Rhode Island; penfriends for over 40 years, and yet to meet.

I tried embroidery, because Nana did some and there were some incomplete attempts of Mums in the spare room at Nana's. I embroidered the bottom of my flares - it was the thing to do in the 70's - and some of my old school shirts.

I read as many books as I could lay my hands on. We went to the library every week, and I saved money to buy my own paperbacks, or was given novels at birthdays and Christmas.

We did jigsaws and crosswords as a family, learning new words and problem solving at the same time.

What do I still do ? 

Read - not as much, but I still love getting lost in the pages of a good book (not a kindle)

I try to write letters, mostly they are typed though, not longhand, and often only at Christmas. But I am going to change that and may the postal companies remember what they are supposed to be doing.

I knit, not as much as I would like, but I do. Mostly baby things.

Embroidery is the same, and cross stitch which I taught myself and did masses of in the early 90's. One day I will have time again.

I was a Brownie, Pippin and Adult leader with GirlGuiding New Zealand for 18 years - and some days I really miss the friendship and the activities and the girls.

I make cards, although most of my making stuff is packed away in boxes, so it doesn't happen so much right now. Except for Christmas.

I bake. If I have all the time in the world there is nothing I enjoy more than baking. Actually, it's been a while since I whipped up a batch of shortbread. Hmmm, there's a plan for my next free weekend.