‘What are you going to tell your girlfriends about today?’ said Working Mum in a churlishly juvenile tone. I know she was just attempting to be amusing so I simply smiled a sarcastic squint back in her general direction.
‘What are they going to do [for the next five days] while your down in Tasmania?’ she continued on. I didn’t rise to the bait, a skill I’ve learned well from having two teenagers. I know she sees this blog as another fad or a product of some mid-life crisis. Either way, she doesn’t see it lasting.
I will admit, my track record for new endeavours isn’t great. I have on numerous occasions thrown myself enthusiastically headlong into things, only to then lose interest equally as quickly. Unfortunately these ‘fads’, as WM insists on referring to them, usually require the purchase of essential equipment or instructional books and DVDs. When I invariably come across these ‘once brought home with pride’ purchases at a later date, they seem to stare back at me, with an evil look of a jilted girlfriend.
The least sensible ‘hobby’, as I prefer to call them, taken up in the last few years would have to be cheese making. This required so much stainless steel equipment, assorted rennet and cultures, special milk, not to mention the whole day to make it, that it was hardly surprising to anyone, not least of all me, that I only ever made the one batch. Working Mum however, was exceptionally impressed with my Feta cheese and in fact proudly gave out tastings at work. As the orders began to roll in, sadly my enthusiasm had long since rolled out and Dairy Farmers breathed a sigh of relief.
Other notable failures would include:
Mountain-biking (Initially reluctant to get my $1200 state-of-the-art bike dirty, I then hurt my knee. Possibly might come back to this though)
Table tennis (Getting the table out and setting it up proved too much effort after a while, then the dog chewed up three of the bats and most of the balls)
Tennis (Despite my $500 racquet I kept getting beaten by the then twelve-year-old Soldier Boy so lost enthusiasm quickly)
Over 35 football (Made it through the season just! Some of these guys though are like… err, 35, so couldn’t keep up with them really)
Going to the gym (Working Mum does this regularly so I thought I’d join her. But I could never seem to put in the time it inevitably required)
Personal trainer (She shouted at me more than Working Mum and made me do hundreds of lunges carrying heavy weights. Eventually my knee gave way… so I gave her away!)
Some of my hobbies have lasted though, like bread making for example. Okay maybe just the one loaf a week these days, but I still make it. Then there’s Coffee. WM loves my coffee and I enjoy making it for her. The grind of the beans, the thick viscous crema trickling into the cup and then the skillful texturing of the milk, not to mention the final delicate dusting with cocoa. Arhhh! I could be a Barista anywhere I reckon. Tropical fishkeeping, that was fairly successful and lasted a good few years. After the third replacement tank once again sprang the inevitable leak, (this time while we were away) killing all the fish and the hall carpet, I knew I would keep no-more.
I guess I’m pushing Working Mum’s tolerance a bit at the moment as besides taking-up blogging, I’m also learning French. Oui… it has required an investment in a language course, but I need to have something that might actually facilitate real progress, do I not? I tried the library first, but all they had was really ‘old school’ packages with assorted tapes which we no longer have the technology to play at home. So I bought Fluenz, which I think is really proving quite successful. In fact if I were to give up now, as long as I was to only meet a girl called Chloe with a friend called Marc and they didn’t want to talk about anything other than ordering coffee or orange juice, I’d be pretty darn impressive.
A la prochaine!
stay at home husband 