Glitter and be gay: but hobbies come and go at Lindsey's house
It was Friday when I wrote this, dress down day, column-wise. I took a departure from my usual highbrow musings to talk about hobbies. My hobbies, obviously. I care not to hear about yours. I’m an enthusiastic hobby starter. Sadly, the shine goes off it as soon as I’ve feverishly researched and bought all the associated hobby stuff. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you a history of my hobbies (2008-2010)
Card making. The main attraction of this hobby was glitter. Glitterglitterglitter. Coloured glitter, glitter pens, loose glitter, embossing glitter. What’s not to love? Having purchased loads of glitter and travelled the length and breadth of the country to craft shops to get the final bit of kit that would enable me to make one card (I haughtily informed everyone who asked that I only made “one offs” and wasn’t interested in mass producing my creations).
I soon gave this hobby up, mainly because Kate was better at it than I was. I was a bit slapdash with my embellishments. I always ended up knee deep in bits of cut off card and covered in glitter dust, and would emerge triumphantly from my “craft room” after three hours of bad language and abandoned “designs” holding aloft a glue daubed skew-whiff card declaring “Oh that’ll dae!” Nobody dared argue. Kate won that round, hobby wise. Bitch. If anybody needs an embossing gun, or indeed half a ton of glitter, give me a shout.
Acting. Admittedly I only had one shot at being a thespian. Persuaded by my trusty sidekick and fellow graduate from the school of rubbish ideas Kate, to attend an audition session for a film being shot in my home town. I found myself dumbly holding a card with my name on it in front of me having my picture taken.
A couple of weeks later, I got the call. I was an extra! A nun! Thirty quid a day! Apparently I had the look of a bitter, twisted old harridan. Who knew? The shine wore off this hobby pretty quickly too. A lot of standing around in nun’s habit (that thing ITCHES) smoking other people’s fags and getting told off for hooting with laughter while they tried to shoot a Very Serious Scene downstairs involving a priest and a carrot. Bah.
Most of my scenes ended up on the cutting room floor. Except one, where I deliver an Oscar winning performance, enthusiastically drinking tea and eating a sausage.
Astronomy. I read a book on astronomy once. I may have mentioned this before. I thought this gave me the credibility to join the local Astronomy Society and to pass myself off as a keen amateur astronomer. The bearded ones quickly saw through my sketchy knowledge of the subject and made me treasurer. I doubt they’d have let me play with them at all otherwise.
It’s hilarious that they put me in charge of their finances. I turned up at the first AGM with a girly pen and notepad. The agenda turned to ‘Treasurer’s Report’. I smiled meekly. They looked at me expectantly. I smiled meekly back at them. For goodness sake. I’m not a mind reader. A bit of warning would’ve been nice. Tut. I’m soldiering on though. I’ve got a spreadsheet on the go now and everything. I still can’t distinguish a black hole from Uranus though…
Car Boot Sales. Yet another abortive attempt to get rich quick. eBaying could also be filed under this heading. It only took a couple of Sunday mornings, hungover, spent shivering in a field for this hobby to be consigned to the recycle bin. I made no money off it whatsoever due to spending most of my time gossiping with the car boot person next to me in a pikey fashion and ignoring any potential customers. I nearly bought a bum bag to make me seem a bit more professional-like.
I don’t seem to have the entrepreneurial spirit required for such ventures. Selling my “old toot”, as Sir Alan would say, is nigh on impossible. I ended up taking most of it to the dump on the way home. Don’t even get me started on eBay. That Post Office is a scary place. Scary tattooed Post Office lady lives there. I’m always too scared to ask for a Certificate of Posting so when the packets go astray, which they weirdly often seem to, I end up just refunding the money, including postage, to the buyer.
I’m now in the cupcake business. The kitchen is a flurry of flour and icing sugar. I’m a bit gung ho with the buttercream icing, but I’m getting there. Hell, you even get edible glitter nowadays! This hobby’s a keeper. I mean it. Cough.
