Art:

Most colleges in the UK run evening classes for people interested in art. Drawing is one of the more common courses offered and indeed I have even done a 10 week course on drawing myself. Unfortunately my ability did not equal my interest and so I wasn’t very good at it, ok I was rubbish. Colleges in the UK also offer classes in oil and watercolour painting.

Bird Watching:

I have never really understood the interest in bird watching but there again a lot of my friends have never understood my interest in fishing. Bird watching involves looking at birds (usually through a pair of binoculars) in their natural environment. Most bird watchers like to record (write down) the various species of bird they observe and some will go to a lot of trouble to find and record rare species.

Calligraphy:

I saw a lot of Calligraphy in China and on a couple of occasions I was even asked by my students to have a go and write something for them. I think that Calligraphy can be best described as artistic handwriting. For example;

Calligraphy

Fishing:

Ah fishing one of the real passions in my life. Yes I have enjoyed fishing for as long as I can remember. In the UK there are many places one can fish, for instance, lakes, rivers, canals and of course the sea. The most unusual fishing I have ever done was in Sweden where I fished through a small hole in the ice on a frozen lake. There are several million people that like to fish in the UK making it a multi million pound business. People that like to fish are also called anglers.

Gardening:

Gardening is spending time working in a garden. I’ve never been a gardener and to be honest I’ve never wanted to. I could blame my hay fever for keeping me out of the garden but that wouldn’t be the real reason. It’s the worms and beetles, well anything that has more than two legs will keep me out of the garden. When I was 24 I had a really big spider in my house and it frightened the life out of me. I had to drive round to my mother’s house and get her to come home with me and throw it out of the house because I was too scared to touch it. I don’t like creepy crawlies, never have, never will. Still gardening is huge in the UK and lots of people take great pride in their gardens. Some like to landscape their gardens and concentrate mainly on flowers, shrubs and perhaps a patio or water fountain. While others like to grow their own vegetables. It used to be said that you can’t beat growing your own vegetables. Which means you can’t beat the taste of home grown vegetables and I must admit the best potatoes I have ever eaten were grown by my father. For those gardeners that really like to grow their own vegetables it is possible to rent a piece of land (which is called an allotment) from the local council. Unfortunately the amount of people wishing to have an allotment actually exceeds the amount of allotments available and as a result there is usually long waiting lists for this extra piece of land. Like fishing gardening is a multi million pound business in the UK. We have something called garden centres and these centres sell everything you need for the garden.

Genealogy:

Genealogy is the investigation or study of an individual’s family history. I have a close friend that is researching her family tree right now. She told me that it has been great fun doing the research but that it is costing her more money than she originally thought. I have thought about doing this sort of thing myself but I am a little bit frightened of what I might uncover. My family might have some dark secret that is best left undiscovered. As they say it is better to “let sleeping dogs lie.” I think that it would be fair to say that the rise in interest in the study of genealogy is due mainly to the ease of using the world wide web. Without doubt the internet has made a lot of subjects like genealogy accessible to the general public.

Hiking:

Hiking can be described as long distance walking. Of course it is a bit more than that for a start it is a chance to get back to nature. The nice thing about hiking is that you can walk at your own speed and for as far and as long as you like. It has long been thought that walking is an excellent form of exercise as it is not too hard on the body. Hiking is done all over the world and in some very exotic places.

Home Brewing:

Home Brewing or making your own wine and beer. This is something else I used to do when I was younger. The problem is that I don’t drink and my wife couldn’t drink all the stuff I was making so I ended up giving most of it away. Nevertheless it is a really interesting thing to do especially if you are the sort of person that likes to use natural ingredients that are easily found in the countryside or bought from shops that specialise in home brewing. I found that it was a really inexpensive thing to do and a lot of fun.

Keeping a Diary

Keeping a Diary is simply recording in writing what as happened to you as an individual in the course of a day. I think that the really great thing about keeping a diary is that in future years it is possible to look back and see what you were thinking at a certain time of your life. I suppose Blogs have taken the place of diaries in recent years but I suspect there are still a lot of people that want to keep their thoughts to themselves and I suspect that some of these people like to keep diaries.  

Knitting:

Knitting is turning wool thread (by the use of knitting needles) into a piece of clothing. When I was young my mother used to knit things for my sister and I. Mainly jumpers and gloves I seem to remember. I always thought that my mother knitted things for my sister and me because she couldn’t afford to buy clothes from the shops but that wasn’t the case. Of course hand knitted clothes are highly valued these days and as a result they can be quite expensive. I think that the nice thing about hand knitted clothes is that they have a very personal feel to them. When I was in China teaching, two of my students knitted scarves for me. One blue and one black. They are nice and warm in the winter and they are special because whenever I wear them I think of the people that knitted them.

Listening to Music:

I would imagine that most people like listening to some kind of music. Some like to listen in the comfort of their own homes while others like to go to concerts. In the summer we have open air concerts in the UK. The most famous is probably The Glastonbury Festival in the county of Somerset. Every year thousands (150.000) of people descend on this festival and every year it seems to rain and people get soaked and covered in mud. However this does not get in the way of people having a good time. I have never been to this festival but I wish I had. The trouble is I like my home comforts too much. My favourite way of listening to music is through headphones. I turn the music up nice and loud and give my mind a good clear out. Of course I don’t recommend that anyone else does this but it works for me.

Making Jewellery:

It seems throughout the world more and more people are enjoying making their own jewellery and the UK is no exception to this. Many colleges in the UK now run evening classes, which cover several aspects of jewellery making. The nice thing about making your own jewellery is that it is a very good way of expressing your individuality, plus you end up with something quite unique to wear. Making jewellery is now big business in the UK. There are people making jewellery for a living and there is no end of business’s small and large supplying the materials needed for making jewellery.

Photography:

The digital age has produced whole nations of people taking pictures. So it would be fair to say that most people now have some interest in photography in one way or another. But of course there are those that like to do a bit more than just point and shoot. Photography is another subject that can be studied at college in the UK and the sorts of courses offered are many and varied, for example: Digital Photography, Photography for beginners, Portrait Photography and Landscape Photography. Every year competitions are arranged for amateur photographers, giving the prize winner’s the opportunity of showing their photographs to thousands of people.

Yoga:

This pastime has been popular in the UK for a long time now. Just about every big city and town in the UK will have a yoga club. I have always thought of yoga as exercise for the body and mind but I suspect it is a lot more than that. I know it is generally thought that yoga brings inner peace and a healthy flexible body. I know a few people that have gone to yoga classes and they all told me that they really enjoyed it. I think that anything that can take the stress out of modern living can’t be a bad thing.

Astrology:

Astrology is the study of how objects in the cosmos (stars, planets, moon etc) influence our everyday lives. I had a friend who told me that when he was younger he would not leave home until he had read his horoscope. He also told me that is fascination with his horoscope got a little bit out of hand so he stopped reading it. I used to read the horoscope page of my daily paper but now that I have stopped buying a newspaper I no longer bother. My star sign is Virgo and my Chinese birth sign is The Rabbit.

Going to the Gym:

Going to the gym usually involves exercising using various pieces of equipment. This can be lifting weights, using a treadmill, which is another name for a running machine, multigyms, cross trainers etc. However using equipment is not the only way to exercise at a gym as many gyms also give aerobic classes for both men and women. I think that probably half of the people I know have been to a gym at one time or another, me included. Sadly too many people, and again me included, give up going for one reason or another.