Dear LPG, 

Now that yet another Christmas and New Year holiday is all but over, I always begin to feel a little deflated.   Even at my age I receive a few presents but all that getting together for dinners, parties and drinks has usually gone to ground leaving many of us older people who no longer have to rush back to work, school or college on our own again and, perhaps, board and with too much time on our hands.

Are you one of those pensioners who feels that you have lived so long and done so much that there is nothing left to do.  If you feel that way, I would ask you to get that idea right out of your head, by first telling you that you haven’t.

There are so many things still to do in this world no matter how old you are and the best thing about being old is that you most probably can make the time to do any one you choose, and apart from any physical and financial restrictions, ‘sky’s the limit’.  

Just in case you did not know, apart from being the first day of a new year, tomorrow will herald a month designed to help us celebrate all those diverse things we can do purely for the enjoyment we get out of being involved, and all you have to do to double the enjoyment is fine a like-minded friend to share a new pastime with. 

Apart from the many other celebratory days that it brings, January is officially the first day of National Hobby Month and there are so many to choose from.

You can start a new trend all of your own and share it with the rest of the world, and if that is too much bother, why not go old-school with a bit of woodwork or knitting?  If nothing I have said has inspired you so far, you would be surprised at just how many options the internet has to offer.

I have asked LPG to link you to a few suggestions and I have to say that I never realised that so many people derived so much pleasure from some of the weird and wonderful pursuits I have found online…  

At this time of year, so many of us resolve to do something better with our futures, unless we have decided that there is no point in braking a resolution tomorrow that we start today, but deciding to do something just because you like doing it could be one way to greet the New Year with a renewed sense of enthusiasm.  

BH, Lewisham Park

BH has found us some somewhat extreme new year hobby ideas to ponder…

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