Hobbies

Those of you who have been reading here from time to time may be aware that I am a Coffee Snob - and more, I write a Coffee Blog (shameless plug link).

Mrs Grendel was concerned for a number of years that I had no hobbies - and this was mostly true - I used to have hobbies but when we moved to the city they just weren't convenient any more.

For example I used to build and launch rockets. This was fine out in the desert where I could launch from a sparse ironstone plain with no aircraft to worry about and nothing to catch fire.

Then there was shooting - it was easy to get out to the range when it was a 10 minute drive away, but in the city, with no car it is just not the done thing to grab your rifle, jump on the train and ride out to the range on public transport (people seem to get a little nervous).

Fishing was great when we lived on the coast in the tropics, but here you need to own a boat - unless you have a penchant for plentiful herring that can be caught off the beach, which I do not.

Mrs Grendel has thrown herself fully into scrapping, but here was I, with nothing to do but read (bliss!).

The hobby bug bit me too though when I just could not get good coffee and started to roast my own. I think that my hobby is pretty different to scrapping (OK - of course it is bloody different) after all, after I create a roast, we drink it and it is gone, never to be seen again and I can never ever replicate the same roast exactly.

Like the sand mandala of Tibetan Buddhism, a coffee roast is transitory so you strive to make each one as beautiful as you can, enjoy it fully while you have it and have no regrets when it is gone.

Scrapping though is more permanent - you are preserving moments in time, fixing them into place.

From one perspective it would be possible to suggest that the philosophy oh Mrs Grendel's Hobby and my Hobby are in opposition, but since she so often works on her layouts while drinking my coffee I think I prefer to see them as complimentary.