Hobbies

Did you? I used to live in Devon...I miss it 

If you say Kent, I'll be surprised.  It's a very strange place.  People are generally quite insular and not very friendly.  Maybe that's why it kind of suits me - not that I'm insular in other ways.  Judging by some of the attitudes I've heard on the streets and read in the local papers over the years, people are pretty reactionary.

Where did you visit in South Devon?  I used to live near Totnes.

I've been interested in most of my hobbies since I was at school some as early as 7 or 8 years old and I'm still into them now...

Long distance radio and television reception (and briefly transmission - passed my radio amateurs exam in 1990) - more details mentioned above in response to Oktanol

Playing Music - I resonated with music quite deeply from a very early age, Mum says church organs used to make me burst into tears as a toddler. Played violin (and later viola) age 8 - 12 had an audition for a music school in Stafford in 1977 but flunked it as I was always crap at sight reading, I always used to bluff my way through because I have an excellent ear and can pick things up just from hearing them once. Also played piano for a year or two but working left and right hands in two different clefs did my head in plus that was the time I was playing viola which in in a 3rd different clef again. Had enough just before I turned 13 and jacked it all in... playing classical instruments wasn't very cool and I desperately needed to up my social status at that age so I switched to electric guitar a year later. Still play now, have been in numerous bands some doing original music and more recently doing covers in pubs. Lots of bands ether failed to get off the ground or ended badly often through me walking out due to difficulties with other members but a few went the course and my record is 3 and a half years ...yay go me!

Listening, watching and collecting music - started buying singles in 1973 when Glam Rock was at its peak and never looked back, first LP (if you dont count those cheapo Top of The Pops compilations from Woolies) was Queen's Sheer Heart Attack on my 10th birthday. First ever gig was the mighty Van Halen at the Birmingham Odeon in 1980 been to hundreds since then. When I got my apprenticeship as a TV & video engineer at 16 I was allowed to borrow a VCR from the rental company I worked for, this was heaven for me as I then started collecting rock music off the telly... Old Grey Whistle Test, TOTP, Rock Goes To College, The Tube etc... still got all my original tapes from the 80s plus hundreds of DVDs etc traded for with other collectors in subsequent years.

Electronics - very much linked with the radio and TV reception stuff above. After friending a lad a year above me in junior school who was an electronics whizz I started building radios and tinkering around with record players etc. Turned into a career after leaving school as mentioned above. Also came in handy with my guitar playing as I started designing my own pedal boards and effects switching systems. In more recent times I've got into modding/customising my guitars with new electronics too.

Ornithology - loved this one since I was about 6 or 7, again its another collecting type hobby in a way. One of the few interests I shared with my Dad (his big thing was stamp collecting which I found really dull) and often used to go out on countryside walks together with our binoculars.
  

@Lonewarrior....do you have any tools for jigsaw sawing.? 

Which places did you feel most welcome? Received most Open mindedness? 

I don't know if this counts as a hobby.

Travelling on coach holidays and exploring new places, this fits in with my photography hobby.

At one time I was terrified to travel on these type of trips.   I didn't know how to behave in hotels or how to cope with travelling with complete strangers or how I would cope with  my lack of foreign languages

Then I did thirteen trips in one year.  And I realised that this could be considered obsessive behaviour.

My trips in 2015 were.

• Scotland.  4 days
• South Devon   5 days
• Ireland   4 days
• North Devon. 4 days
• Cornwall.  5 days
• Midlands. 4 days
• Kent.  5 days
• Belgium  5. days
• Belgium again 7 days
• Germany 5 days
• Italy 7 days
• Holland 5 days
• Scotland again 5 days.

I got to see a lot of countryside, different cities, met many interesting people.  Enough hotel experience for a lifetime.  Went by Eurostar twice.  Ferries 12 times.

It's a nice hobby but expensive.

there are many things that i would like to do...but don't often have the opportunity to practice.  I love walking in the countryside, nature, literature, philosophy, psychology, science, technology, history...

i love jazz and would love to visit the theatre more, see an opera, farm a small croft, teach more, give more, be more....

more of what...you may ask....be more of me!! - lol

My hobbies are things I've pretty much had for life.  Writing (primarily), reading, some kind of creative work (image editing has opened up the world for me!).  I was a runner for over 30 years, but got sick of getting age-related injuries - especially Achilles tendonitis.  I swim and cycle a lot instead now - though I've done both of those for years, too.

I did martial arts for a few years (Bujinkai karate) because I was interested in the spiritual side of the discipline as much as being able to learn how to defend myself.  I applied myself rigorously, reaching blue belt (7th kyu - three below 1st Dan black belt), but I never really had a natural aptitude for it.  Kata (learning a routine sequence of moves for each grade) is integral to the practice, and I used to love practicing kata because it is practiced alone, in one's own space, and is about the individual learning mastery over his or her body.  I was less keen on sparring.  Despite what I'd learned, my technique always fell apart during sparring.  I simply couldn't co-ordinate, or anticipate what was coming at me in order to counter it.  Maybe a body language issue.  I also couldn't maintain eye contact with my sparring partner, which is also not good.  In the end, I gave up following my blue belt grading because it was so physically gruelling.  I don't mean the exercise itself, but the fact that I picked up some severe body bruising and a couple of cracked ribs which left me in agony for days.  Unfortunately, with any martial art, you get an element that's more in it for the macho thing.  Some of the black belts clearly enjoyed being able to show off their skills in aggressive combat.  They loved the blood and bruises.  They often used to walk home from the dojo afterwards still wearing their gis, just posing.  But this isn't really in the true spirit of the discipline.  It probably varies from one group to another.  If you go into it for the right reasons, and with a Cain-like degree of open-mindedness and humility, you'll probably find it hugely rewarding.  It's certainly a great way to develop spiritually (if you're that way inclined) and physically.  It pushes you to all of your limits.

lol

I use such tools quite often, for jigsaw/scrollsaw sawing mainly that drill on the right, and for life in general the mallet...

Just one of my hobbies,restoring old tools,  I replace handles, clean file and polish rusty steel, varnish wood, repair broken parts.

I like to try and improve as well.

The tools are seen as no longer viable by most?

They all function, 

I am a practical person, hands on type, I understand metals, the science in making the steel to suit each use.

the care that went into making them.

R16.

V154.

I like those hobbies that are meant to naturally increase dopamine levels.

Incremental, detail focussed manual tasks do it for me.....When I go fishing I love to untangle the fishing line really slowly and patiently.

Yesterday, I had to untangle a really fine gold chain on a locket for my daughter:

That totally calms my head down and gives me focus:

Mind you, I'm ADHD, so maybe that doesn't suit everyone.

Not that you can make a hobby out of this, unless you take up watch making.

I also think long sessions of intense aerobic exercise are good.

Try downhill mountain biking listening to music.

Mind you - Bear in mind these are solitary activities and we benefit from the company of others, even though we find socilaising difficiult.

Key is to hook up with a like minded friend with a common interest.

Good luck

Well, suppose it's quite good - Deutsch ist meine Muttersprache :) 

Norway is good so far, people don't usually ask how you are as a way of saying hello (and nothing else). They may ask it, but it's a question and you are allowed to give an answer. Maybe that's not the most important thing in the world, but it makes me feel a little more relaxed.

I don't use an app for geocaching (have got a GPS thingy) but I know others who do and the one they use is for free. It's called c:geo.

I moved house in 2012 and that was the end of these hundreds of channels.

Now in flats I am relying on freeview and this is also an uncertain/challenge. Now the problem is reception.  Ariel is fixed on top of flats.  So atmospheric conditions determine reception.   In good conditions when I do a search I get many channels, when conditions deteriorate some of these channels are either unwatchable or have no sound.  

Yeah satellite is another world completely, if you actually want to watch the content of foreign programs  then its the way to go. I did used to have a motorised dish back in the 90s and 00s mainly for the music channels but I was always more interested in terrestrial long distance reception via unusual atmospheric conditions and have not bothered with satellite since we moved house 4 years ago. Its the technical challenge of dragging in these ultra weak signals plus the random aspect of being at your receiver at the right time.

I found that digital TV has even more channels than analogue.

When we set our satellite to the dual position of 19.2E and 13E with a monoblock.  We had over 900 FTA channels from the Astra and Hotbird satellites.  A few were English, others were just about every European language. About 50 German , 30 Italian, 20 French, etc. Euronews was enabled for 9 languages, I could switch between languages in a split second. Then we had the Arabic and north African channels, the useless advertising channels, religious ones and the very low quality porn ones, wanting our credit card details to subscribe to the hard stuff. 

It was... digital DXing is possible but no fun really as signals are either there or not, you cant detect weak ones like with analogue. My best catch was Australian channel 0 during the sunspot peak around 1989/90. These days I concentrate on FM radio DX as its the last bastion of analogue.

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How funny, du kannst natürlich auch gerne auf Deutsch schreiben ;-)

And I'm learning Norwegian too - perhaps not exactly a language you need as a tourist, given that there are only a bit over 5 million people speaking it and most of them also speak English really well, but I live here now, so that makes it kind of important. 

I like making things nobody really needs - cards, wood stuff, vases from broken lab glassware, amigurumis and other crochet/knitting, funny geocache containers... If you have thought about trying geocaching then you should simply give it a go! Start with something easy, and somewhere quiet because it will take you a while to find even quite easy ones in the beginning and you start feeling suspicious pretty quickly when there are people walking past all the time. It's great fun and a hobby that probably attracts a higher percentage of people with Aspie traits than there are in the general population. Until I tried it I thought I don't like any trainspotting sort of thing - well, changed my mind about that. I find it a great way of exploring interesting areas I would not find otherwise and to have a purpose when going out on my own (which I would otherwise do a lot less).