This past few days I’ve been doing some new, old things.
Last week, Britt and I took a couple of classes at the Esperanza bike shop here in Albuquerque. For my non-local readers (and possibly for the locals as well), the city runs a program where you attend the classes on safety and repair, you pay the nominal fee and they provide you with a refurbished bike. They also operate an open clinic where you can bring the bike in, they will help you with any repairs and adjustments you might need.
Since a good friend of ours works there, he helped us pick out our bikes, as well as giving us advice on the extra equipment to go with it; lights, locks etc.. So we now have a rebuilt mountain bike each and that same friend intends to take us out and get an idea of what we need to customize them to our needs. Now I haven’t really been on a bike, probably since before university and it’s possibly even longer in Britt’s case. So we’re both a bit nervous but a lot more excited to get out there.
Yesterday, as part of my mother-in-law’s visit to celebrate her (and Britt’s) birthday, we went to the Albuquerque Biopark, and spent a good chunk of the day going around the zoo, aquarium and botanic gardens. I spent a fair bit of that time taking photos on my iPhone, a couple of which I’ve already shared. This lead Britt to suggest (not for the first time) that she should pass one of her old camera bodies on to me and let me experiment a little, since I seem to enjoy it so much. I am in no way as good a photographer as she is, and I prefer either animals or landscapes to people, but I do appreciate the vote of confidence on her part.
And then tonight, we did a Paint with Wine evening. Which basically involves being given a canvas, paints, an original to copy and guidance from one of the employees on how best to create your own version of the painting.
I haven’t done much painting since art class in secondary, except for a last years trip to Paint with Wine but I did do a little bit of sketching years back.
So what’s my point here, assuming I have one?
All of these pastimes/hobbies are things new to me, or things that I haven’t done in years. And they’re all things I enjoyed doing. So what if I’m not that great at any of them, and maybe never will be? The important thing is to have fun doing them and since I don’t remember a lot of fun last year, I think this year I should try whatever takes my fancy…
If nothing else, it should broaden my horizons a little, and that can only benefit my writing.
The Scribblings 