Herself has decided I need a hobby.

I don’t know what brought this about. I have never complained about being bored as frankly I don’t have much time for boredom.

She went through a phase of trying to get me interested in music. She started hunting the Interweb looking for keyboards. I told her that the chances were that I would play a few tunes on it and then get bored with it. It would just clutter up a room that is already over cluttered.

Yes, I used to play the piano, many many years ago. In my school-days I was shunted off to the Royal Irish Academy of Music for piano lessons and I hated it. I refused to practice and in the end the teacher refused to teach me. I taught myself to pay the guitar myself. That was an instrument I could handle and it led to many happy years playing folk and traditional music around Ireland. That ground to a halt soon after getting married.

So Herself told me to take up the guitar again. I still have two – a Classical [nylon string] and a 12-string – both of which have broken strings. There are two reasons I don’t play them. One is that to play the guitar you need callouses on your fingertips of the left hand, and until those callouses develop it is really fucking painful. The other is that I am basically an accompanist rather than a solo player and only really get into the swing of things when playing with someone else.

The latest idea is Astronomy. I don’t know where that idea came from. She has never seen me gazing wistfully at the stars nor have I expressed much interest. However she took to searching for telescopes on the Interwebs. I pointed out that astronomy basically consisted of sitting in the garden on freezing winter nights and what had I done to deserve that? She was adamant however.

She bought me a telescope for Christmas.

I managed to persuade her that a reflector telescope with computer driven motors was a bit OTT and that it would be one hell of a waste of money if I got bored and lost interest, so she got me a cheap reasonably priced one that doesn’t require a mortgage. I’m not allowed open it until The Big Day so I don’t know how powerful the yoke is yet.

Am I looking forward to freezing my balls off in the garden on frosty nights?

I don’t know.

Time will tell.