Author: minceandskirlie

Writer, poet, musician, and sometime IT professional in the North East of Scotland.
Health and fitness, Thoughts, Writing

Hobbies I’ve Tried Over The Years

minceandskirlie

Over the years I have tried a LOT of hobbies. Despite being a bit introverted, I really enjoy trying new things and learning new skills. There is quite probably a neurodivergent reason for a lot of this, but getting diagnosed as an adult is a bit of a non-starter round here. But it wouldn’t surprise me at all. I thought it would be interesting to go through a list of as many of them as I could remember, from when I was at school to where I am now as an adult in his mid-forties.

Anyway, many of these haven’t stuck with me, but a few I’ve carried on over the years or picked up again after some long gaps. My main takeaway is never be afraid to try new things, everyone was a beginner sometime and the vast majority of hobby communities and clubs (online and in real life) are very welcoming and encouraging to newcomers.

In no particular order:

  • Football – never progressed past kickabouts with friends really and going to watch a couple of games per season at Pittodrie.
  • Video games – a constant throughout my life, from the spectrum to the PS5. I really can’t imagine never being a gamer.
  • Warhammer – Started with 40k 2nd edition box set in early 90s. Then picked it up again a few years ago and now have a lot of plastic lying around in various painted states.
  • Guitar – another constant since I started at 14. Sometimes I go through spells of not playing much, but always pick up a guitar again eventually. I enjoy the variety it offers, from playing heavy metal bangers, to fingerpicking folk songs on my acoustic, to bluesy jams, and even picking up some jazz recently.
  • ITF Taekwondo – did this for about 6 or 7 years on and off until a bad injury. Still really miss it but don’t think my back would forgive me if I tried martial arts again.
  • WTF Taekwondo – went to a couple of classes at uni but didn’t gel with it
  • Hung Ga Kung Fu – did it for a year or so in between TKD spells
  • Airfix model airplane kits – built a few as a kid and picked up a few recently as an adult
  • Golf – I still have clubs but have always been pretty awful at it
  • Badminton – Played a bit at school, was rubbish at it.
  • Drawing – Made a half hearted effort to improve at this a few years ago. Can only sometimes produce something I’m happy with.
  • Juggling – I was given some juggling boobs as a leaving gift from a previous workplace, so felt obliged to learn.
  • Playing in bands – From the age of 18 to my early 30s this was a big part of my life. Hopefully I can revisit it again someday.
  • Mandolin -Picked it up when I got into some trad music and still enjoy picking away at it regularly.
  • Piano – Have tried learning a few times over the years
  • Photography -Got a nice camera when our eldest was born and really got into it for a while
  • D&D – A few sessions as a kid and then played with a regular group again for the last few years
  • Cycling – Always had a bike, but took it seriously for a while when I got a road bike over a decade ago. Still ride it!
  • Indoor climbing – Tried this before the kids were born as something we could do together. I still go back to try it every few months. I’ve never progressed past the easiest grades.
  • Going to the gym – Was a regular gym user for a while when I had easy access through work.
  • Running – I started this about 20 years ago when someone asked me if I wanted to a 10k for charity. Has been the one exercise I’ve seriously committed to long term and still do today.
  • Hill running – Joined a club for a few years and even ran up some munros with them. Great fun and miss being that fit!
  • Hill walking – Haven’t been out on the hills for a few years now due to injuries but really miss being out there. This is one I’ll definitely get back to some day.
  • Swimming – Took this quite seriously for a few months, trying to improve my technique to maybe see if I could enter a very short triathlon. Could never get much past the barely drowning stage.
  • Birdwatching – Always loved birds since I was a kid and really started getting back into IDing them a few years ago. As simple as just figuring out what was in the garden really.
  • Environmental Science – Been doing this degree for 7 years with the OU in my spare time.
  • Tinkering with electronics – Built a couple of effects pedal kits, have a load of raspberrypi and arduino kits. Haven’t ever done much with them.
  • Programming – I started getting BASIC coding books out of the library as soon as I could read. Kept it up over the years and was even a developer professionally for a while. Hardly touch code now.
  • Web design – Learned HTML, Javascript and PHP in the late 90s and 2000s. Again, was useful in a work setting for a while too but not anymore.
  • Magic The Gathering – Got into this a couple of years ago and now have way to many boxes of cardboard in the house.
  • Fishing – Bought a cheap rod and a load of tackle. Lost most of it to seaweed without catching anything.
  • Archery – After the last olympics I wanted to try something new while getting over my back injury. This fit the bill and I’m still really enjoying going along to our club sessions every week.
  • Racing and flight sims – Yes I do need a racing wheel rig and a HOTAS setup to play my very serious video games. No I’m not any good at them.
  • Singing – Oh god I’m so bad, but I keep trying.
  • Rubiks cube – My daughter got really into these a couple of years ago and so I got her to teach me and we had a few months of trying to beat each other’s times. She won.
  • Linocut printing – Bought a small kit on a total whim and loved the result I was able to get with my very basic drawing skill.
  • Cooking – Don’t do this as seriously as I used to, but this blog started as a foodie site. Sharing recipes and restaurants. For a while I was really proud of how good the food I could make was.
  • Writing prose and poetry – Again, I took this very seriously for a long time. Was part of a local writers group and even got a few pieces published locally. Kind of lost the enthusiasm for it over the pandemic lockdowns.
  • Lockpicking – This is a recent one. I fell down a YouTube rabbit hole and found a kit with some picks and a couple of practice locks for not a lot of money. It’s surprisingly simple!
  • Homebrewing beer – Great if you like your beer extra yeasty flavoured. Did a few batches and realised my time was better spent buying good beer from people who knew what they were doing.
  • Learning French – One day I’ll actually do this properly.
  • Twitch streaming – This was interesting and I do want to go back to it. As someone who has, er, a few hobbies but doesn’t necessarily have anyone that shares my varied interests, it was nice to be able to just turn the stream on and yap for a few hours.
  • Yoga – Did this to try and recover from injury a few years ago and found it really good fun and easy to fit in. Then just stopped after a few months. Should go back to it really.
  • Kayaking – We took a few lessons in a local swimming pool. Which was a bit chaotic. Would be nice to have one to play with in the summer, but never took it any further.
  • Chess – Played a bit in primary school and then spent a couple of months earlier this year addicted to chess.com and the chess side of YouTube. Considered joining a local club, but probably got enough going on just now.
  • Calisthenics – Like yoga, I got really into this as a way of conditioning for injury prevention. Also like yoga I just slowly stopped doing it and should pick it up again.
  • Snorkeling – Tried it on holiday, thought it was the best thing ever. There’s a big difference between doing it in the Mediterranean and doing it in the North Sea.
  • Trad music – Bought a mandolin and went along to some session classes a few years ago. Enjoy helping out at the local folk festival and still pick away at a load of tunes. My mandolin stays handy on a hook on my desk.
  • Boardgames – I’ve bought so many boardgames over the years and never play them.
  • Poker – There was a few years in the late 2000s when everyone was playing poker and it was on TV. Played a lot with friends then realised everyone took it way too seriously and I wasn’t enjoying it.
  • Building drones – Bought a cheap drone and it was fun. Built a small indoor one and it was fun. Started researching parts for a racing / stunt drone and realised it was going to be a horrendously expensive hobby and I didn’t need that in my life. Would still quite like a wee DJI drone to mess about with sometime for videos and photography.
  • Blogging – I took blogging and online writing quite seriously for a few years. Doing this food blog and some more tech orientated pieces on another site. Until, like a lot of my hobbies, I started focusing more on other things and just slowly stopped doing it.

Wow, that’s a lot! I count fifty two different hobbies. Some of those could probably be broken down a bit more if I really wanted to separate them out too. Also I’ve not included things like reading, watching TV, going to the cinema or going to the pub with friends. Things which I guess have taken up huge amounts of time over the years but it’s not like you’re practicing and developing skills for them. It’s just living a normal life. What I’ve listed are all pastimes that you need to consciously improve at and which take a bit of effort.

I’ve enjoyed all these hobbies I’ve tried over the years. Even the ones I’ve not carried through into middle age or just tried a few times and decided they weren’t for me. My one big regret I guess, is that I can’t help but think how much better I could have been at some of my favourite hobbies if I hadn’t been distracted by trying new things all the time. The old jack of all trades, master of none thing.

I like that it’s always been a mix of creative hobbies, exercise, and play. These are all sides of me that I think are equally important, though I often neglect one aspect when focussing on another. For example I have been skipping a lot of opportunities to get outside and be active recently because I got a new guitar and I’m keen to spend time playing that instead. It’s probably better to force myself to be more balanced when I can. Let me know what you think and how many hobbies you’ve tried over the years in the comments below!

Thoughts

One Year On

minceandskirlie

It’s been about a year since my last blogpost. And some things have happened since then. When I was last posting I was in the middle of half marathon training and really hyped to be back at a regular running schedule after a few years of back issues. Well, my disc suddenly decided fuck that a few weeks from the race and although I pushed through on the day, that was pretty much the last decent run I went on. That was in July last year.

Since then I’ve had physio, then surgery a few weeks ago, and I’m now hopefully on the way to recovery. If I get back to half marathon distance and beyond? I dunno. It might be that part of my life is done, which I’m starting to come to terms with, but you never know. I’m basically taking all the pressure off myself for that now.

There’s been a load of other stuff going on since last year, both on a personal level and generally in the global news that has been not fun. However, let’s not dwell too much on those. I’d much rather try and focus on things that are positive and take people’s mind off all the horrible things that are going on. The news is important and activism is more important than ever. But you have to also let the pressure off and take care of yourself first.

With that in mind and while I’ve been unable to go running, cycling, climbing or do any of the other things I would do to maintain body and soul I’ve had to look at other ways to relax. I mean, I still had gaming and music, but I was looking for something new, preferably a social sport that was low impact and I could take with me into the next ten or twenty years if my back decides to rebel against me again. I did some research and had a look at what was available locally and eventually signed up for a beginners course in archery.

I’ve been going since October and it’s honestly brilliant. The act of archery itself is very meditative – the draw, hold and release. A motion repeated over and over again across the session. Trying to build consistency and accuracy. I find it really relaxing, plus it uses a lot of back muscles to correctly draw the bow and my physio thought it would be beneficial in the long term for recovery. The social aspect is also really good for me, especially as I’ve been working from home more often lately. Everyone at the club is friendly and encouraging, it’s a small club with a focus on coaching beginners and kids so you’d expect that really.

Archery is also a very nerdy sport, it’s not fashionable, which suits me perfectly. Plus it has a huge variety of equipment to geek out over. I took great pleasure in putting together a wish list of gear, which I then picked off over black Friday sales and christmas. Then you have to set it all up and tune it so it’s as accurate as possible. I feel like I’m starting to get the hang of it, despite a long break for my disc surgery. I’m excited to see how I can progress through the year now we’re into the outdoor season.

Another new hobby I’ve picked up (like I needed any more) is chess. I keep installing chess apps on phones, tablets and even my PC but then never play them. Well, I decided to give it a go and now I’m hooked. I can’t get enough. I’m watching YouTube videos, twitch streamers, reading books, doing puzzles and playing loads of games on chess.com to try and improve. I’m still pretty terrible though but I’m enjoying it a lot. I like that there’s a game mode for whatever I can fit in at the time. Quick puzzles and blitz games to pass a few minutes, or rapid games if I have some more time to spare.

I also play games like Magic: The Gathering and Warhammer 40k, but to keep up with them you have to build new decks, new army lists, and the rules are constantly being updated and you have to spend a lot of effort just keeping on top of the logistics of knowing the game, let alone actually playing a few rounds. Chess has a lot of the strategy of other games but chess… chess never changes. The rules are the rules and that’s how the game is played (variants like chess960/freestyle not withstanding). But really, I like that I can just load up a game on my PC, phone or tablet and run through it in 5, 10 or 20 mins. Or just sit and go through some tactics puzzles for a bit.

There’s also a bottomless pit of resources to help you learn and improve in the game. Which for anyone like me who has a strong hyper-fixation reflex when it comes to new things, is an absolutely essential part of the experience.

Anyway, that’s what I’ve been up to. In amongst all that, there’s still the day job, still got to spend time with the family and keep the kids entertained, and I’ve still got a uni module to finish for the OU that I use all these hobbies to procrastinate from. Once this latest (and second last) module is out of the way I hope to get back to some Twitch streams myself, pick up some music and model painting again and maybe even do more writing. For now, I’ll go play some chess. No, damnit, I’ll go finish this assignment…

Health and fitness, Thoughts

Reasons it’s OK to stop on a run

minceandskirlie

I watched a recent video by The Running Channel on YouTube where the presenter beat themselves up for stopping near the end of their long training run. I’ve seen other runners do the same, being annoyed with themselves for stopping on a run or walking a short distance. With the caveat that I am not a fast runner, or a coach, I’m just a recreational runner that’s been doing this for a long time, let me just say to everyone – it’s OK to stop!

Walking for a minute or stopping for a few seconds won’t suddenly undo the rest of the good work you’ve done during the session. If you’ve been working hard for weeks during a training block, aiming for a specific event that’s coming up, one short rest won’t knock back the weeks of effort you’ve put in leading up to it. So give yourself a break!

Here’s some reasons why you should stop during a run:

1 – To get a rest
This is the obvious reason. Maybe you’re coming down with something, maybe you’re still getting over that interval session the other day, maybe you just aren’t having a good running day. Take a minute, catch a breath and then get going again once you’ve reset.

2 – To cross the road
Another obvious reason. Not all of us have access to miles of uninterrupted running and occasionally, or quite often in an urban environment, you need to stop to safely cross the road. Remember to look both ways.

3 – To admire the scenery
You’re out for a trail run, you turn the corner just as the sun peaks out from the clouds for the first time, lighting up a majestic mountain which reveals itself in the distance and making the landscape around you glow. Birds are singing, flowers are blooming, sonnets are being written in your head at the sights in front of you. If you can’t stop for a second to check out the view, why are you even running off-road?

4 – Squirrel!
Channel you’re inner Dug. It’s OK to be distracted by a squirrel, fox, stoat, eagle, kestrel, owlbear. Just like number 3, one of the reasons I love running on hills and trails is to be surrounded by nature, and fill up my inner well with the beauty of the landscape and wildlife around us. If I hear a skylark high above me, damn right I’m stopping for a second to try and spot it. If I see a stoat running along the edge of a field, I’ll watch it until it disappears.

5 – To refuel
On race day, going for your PB, you can force yourself to eat a cereal bar or squeeze down a gel while you’re running. When you’re out on your long run in the spring sunshine and you’ve had months of a cold, wet, windy winter (as we have in Scotland), then it’s OK to stop to take on a gel, soak up some warmth for the sun, find a bin or a pocket to put the wrapper in, then set off running again.

6 – Because it hurts
If something hurts while you’re running. Stop! At least to see if it goes away. If it doesn’t go away and it’s affecting how you run – changing your gait, slowing you down – or it gets worse (especially if the pain is sharp), then really stop. Cancel the run and walk home or phone for a lift. Carrying on and making it worse will just lead to long term injury and even less running in the short term. Having said that, a bit of muscle ache is fine, no-one said it would be easy.

So there’s a few reasons why I think it’s OK to stop the next time you’re out on a training run. Obviously, some people are more hardcore than me and if you really don’t want to stop, that’s OK too. I’m not saying you have to, I’m just saying if you do stop then don’t be hard on yourself about it. At the end of the day most of us are doing this because we enjoy running, it keeps us fit, and gets us outside. Make the most of it and keep it fun.

Thoughts

This is going well

minceandskirlie

Welp, It’s only been 3 months since my last blogpost! Such much for getting back to writing more regularly.

In the aftermath of my post about loneliness I said things were looking up and I had a plan to try and improve the situation. And I did, really! But knowing what I should do and actually doing it are two different things. Work got busy. I got sick, had an (unrelated) minor operation, then got injured. Kids had football to go to, school holidays, and birthdays. My OU course hit it’s peak for the year. The excuses and the stress just builds on top of each other.

In the end, all the things I told myself I’d try and do, like get back to the local running club, go to some local folk sessions or try to get together with friends more often to play games, just haven’t happened. I spent ages fretting about my online branding and renaming my Twitch channel, then haven’t had time to stream since.

To paraphrase Jurassic Park – Life, uh, gets in the way.

I did find some time to do another linocut print:

Even that was over a month ago now and I haven’t done any more. It’s really frustrating.

There is light at the end of the tunnel though. My uni module is coming to an end over the next weeks and the pressure in my day job is easing off as well. I seem to have recovered from my knee injury (pathetically inflicted walking down the stairs at home) and have managed to start running again. I’ve even managed to use some firm self control and some calorie counting to start losing a bit of weight. I figure if I can get rid of some of the weight I’ve put on since the pandemic that might help reduce my back issues and other injuries.

Hopefully this all sticks and I can get enough momentum to start hitting the running club meetups again. I’ve got a three times deferred race entry for the local half-marathon coming up in July too, so that’s giving me a strict goal to train for. If things keep going well I might enter some more races to push me through the rest of the year.

With uni winding down for the year, I hope I can get some more time to do more arty stuff. Be it lino printing or painting Warhammer again. There’s a new Ork codex with my name on it so I need to get some of my forlorn pile of shame painted up and get some games on the go. I should also manage to get some time to do some Twitch streams again for the half a dozen people that have ever watched one. I’m wary though of over committing myself to projects that I will never find the motivation or time to complete!

Which brings me to another thing that’s been playing on my mind lately. I think it’s pretty to me now that I probably have inattentive ADHD, and have always had it. Which explains why I bounce around so many (god, so many) hobbies and struggle to build any momentum. What I need to decide is should I do anything about it? But I think that’s a whole separate blogpost.

Anyway I’m going to leave it there for now, with a promise not to leave it so long until the next post. If you’re reading this, thanks for sticking around. Go watch Fallout on Prime if you haven’t already. I saw the first episode the other night and it was fantastic.

Thoughts

What’s in a name?

minceandskirlie

I’ll be honest, I’m starting to really dislike my name. Not Chris, that’s fine. I mean my gamertag, Twitch screen-name and the name I’ve been using for most of my socials in recent years – Folkedoff.

It started simple enough. I think I picked it as a gamertag when I registered a new xbox account in the xbox 360 days. I like folk music, the off is part of my surname, and yes it was a childish play on “fucked off”. That joke got old real fast once I had kids and they got old enough to read my gamertag out loud.

Also for a joke to be funny, people have to get it. No-one gets it. If I jump in a new twitch stream and hit follow or start chatting, people don’t seem to be able to parse “folkedoff”. Not just those who don’t speak English as a first language either; Americans seem to have real problems with it. Admittedly you could argue that they barely speak English as a first language either… (joking obv. after all I’m Scottish and the same could be said for many of us)

Nothing kills a pun like mangling the pronunciation, so it’s painful to hear all the variations of the name people can come up with.

As a gamertag it’s not too bad. It’s fine. But now I’m using it for everything it’s starting to bug me a lot. If it was just Twitch it might be bearable, but now I’ve tried to align my most active public socials like Threads and Instagram with Twitch, along with any Discord memberships the name feels really clunky and uncomfortable. I’m not happy with it.

So what do I do about it? I don’t know really. I guess I have to change it but I don’t know what to change it to?

If my primary focus for a name is to choose something to use for content creation – Twitch, YouTube, and socials then it should be something broad enough to cover all the content I’m creating. On Twitch I keep intending to main music, playing some folk songs and trad tunes, maybe testing out some metal and electro stuff, but it never works out like that and I spend more time streaming sim games like DCS or Flight Simulator, plus a few variety games I pick up on game pass. While folkedoff kind of fit the music theme (assuming you get the joke), it’s clunky for anything else. Then on Threads and Insta I’ll often post pics of projects I’m working on, arty experiments, Warhammer models, wildlife pics, plus all the other thoughts and nonsense that comes into my head. Lastly there’s this blog as well!

I guess I need to take some time to think up some new names and mull them over. There’s a few, including Mince and Skirlie, that I’ve used for other projects in the past that might fit but probably not really. If I switch it up I think it’ll be something new. Full rebrand!

Ideally I want something simple, easy to say, catchy, maybe a bit folky or metal, that will fit with music or gaming. I don’t really want to split things up too much into separate Twitch streams or YouTube channels. Maybe I pick something from nature, a bird name or something like a Scots name for one of my favourite birds or some other object related to my interests. There’s a lot to consider. Let me know if any of you have good ideas for picking names!

Watch this space then for the big rebrand on Twitch and socials once I’ve made up my mind!