Excuse the blatant rip-off of a current TV series!!
I guess we all have hobbies for a reason (well you should have - life's just too damn short not to have some time to do something you enjoy for yourself)! I'm more than used to getting a fair old bit of stick from friends and relations about my love of 'playing with trains' but its all good natured and light hearted - in fact its surpising how many of them show an interest when they see them first hand - more so on the technical/artistic level, than on the subject matter itself I might add.
If I'm honest I tend to relax, chill out, calm down, call it what you will, after a few hours spent modelling. Maybe its my form of therapy to help me think and put things in perspective. That's not to say I'm not serious about my hobby - ask my partner and she would probably say that on occasion my interest borders on OCD levels - but on the whole I'm in my element if i can spend a bit of my spare time each day doing a bit towards the railway. I mean lets face it there seems to be bugger all on the TV nowadays. But I find it gives me chance to sort things out in my head and think things through - the only other thing that comes near to it for me is going for a run. Something I haven't done for quite a while.
My situation is probably different from many people. I have no children (well not at the moment). Not by choice, just the way its sort of worked out for now, so I guess I can allocate my spare time a bit better than those who have to juggle a job with family commitments and all that comes with that. I have a very understanding partner too - who doesn't take offence if i suddenly disappear into my workshop (spare bedroom) for an hour, then reappear covered in paint and smelling of turps, oh and usually with a scalpel injury of some sort!!
Its been a funny 12 months for me with my work too. I reached a low point this time last year with redundancy looming and had a few difficult months - Christmas was especially a bit flat for me - waiting to find out what was going to happen. In the end, after a bit of a battle I finally came out the other side with the result I wanted. Skip forward to now and as a freelance designer I find I'm either working round the clock being insanely busy, or quiet as a church mouse chasing clients for work. No matter what though, I always try and find a bit of time for my 'therapy' sessions in the week. It's nice to think that something as simple as this hobby can level things out when life throws you the occasional curve ball.
I received this as a Christmas present and at the time it summed up the moment perfectly - and still does!! Wise words indeed - thanks John & Kath.
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