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hobbies

dance

I always wanted to do ballet. As a child in Australia my only ballet contact was family friend, Prue Coffey, who was a dancer. It wasn't until I was 9 years old in England that I went to ballet lessons and continued until I was 15 years old. I went back to ballet after Daniel was born in 1984 and happily exhausted myself every week for the next 15 years until a recurring problem with my knee lateral cartilage forced me to stop.

I enjoy having a go at other styles and types of exercise and have dabbled in Keep Fit, Pilates, Tai Chi, Line Dancing.

I have more than "dabbled" in sacred dance which was a big part of my life in the church for 22 years. I started up the group in 1975 and finally 'retired' in 1997. This is a big topic which I might cover in more detail on the special interests page.

crafts

Variety is the spice of life! Mum taught me to knit when I was about six, then later on to crochet. Then there was sewing, also taught and encouraged by Mum; I remember at junior school when I was nine I hand sewed a pair of pyjamas with french seams and buttonholes done on the machine at home. (It even impressed my teacher Miss Hardcastle, who was not impressed by anything else I did!) It seemed a backward step at secondary school to have to make a sewing bag!

In my twenties, Jill passed on her knowledge of a variety of crafts she learnt when part of the Post Green Christian community. First there was tatting which I used to make edging lace for my wedding dress. Then came decoupage, 3-D pictures, canal art (Sue's input).

Seeing a physiotherapist colleague making a patchwork quilt in her lunch breaks started an interest in patchwork and quilting, which I took up particularly when I stopped work to be a mother! I tried a variety of different patchwork styles - pentagons, log cabin, shadow, catherdral, quilt squares. I have made cushion covers, cot quilt, floor rugs.

My friend Gail has always been full of good craft ideas which have inspired me (or did I just copy them?). My cross stitch phase lasted quite a while, with various pictures for the wall, for greeting cards, cushion cover panels, christmas tree decorations. A brief sortie into decorating polystyrene eggs is one thing I will never do again since the time I was pushing a fine crochet hook through it to pass a hanging thread and inadvertantly also pushed it through my thumb. Being a hook, it would not pull out, so it was off to Casualty for minor surgery!

music

When I was about 12 years old, I was wanting to learn the piano (as Jac and Jill and Paul did), but I had to choose between having either ballet or piano lessons. After some thought, I decided to continue with the ballet as I could more likely teach myself the piano. So that is what I did, with a bit of help from various family members. Quite a good way to learn for someone doing it for fun as I didn't have to practise boring scales and exercises!

Also in my teens, everyone was learning the guitar and using it to accompany songs at church. I think Jill started learning first on a guitar that her then boyfriend, Nigel, had made. Paul was next and I had a go. I never got very good at it, but I was able to play, mainly for myself, and later on occasionaly at the children's club (Dove Club) which I helped to run.

A combination of thinking in terms of chords, as in the guitar, and some knowledge of harmony from O-Level Music has helped me improvise for my own enjoyment at the piano. Once, when I had been fiddling around a particular chord sequence, a friend John gave me some words he had written for a carol and wanted a tune for. It came at just the right time and the music I developed from my chord sequence came together with his words quite well. I sent a copy of the words and music to Mum and Dad who were living in Australia at the time. Dad entered the song into a competition run in South Australia by a church organisation and it won! Unfortunately, John and I could not attend the winners ceremony, but Dad went in our place and heard the carol performed in a special service.

For a while, I was part of the music group at church, playing keyboard/piano. We had some good times in the late '90s developing 'The Zone' services which were particularly aimed at the young people and those who enjoy an upbeat style of contemporary music in their worship. Steve (guitar) and Mark (bass guitar) still play every week in church.

current hobbies

Due to ill health, my current hobbies are rather more restricted! I like feeding and watching the garden birds, reading, doing the Guardian quick crossword, computer stuff, playing the piano, a little bit of light gardening. I spend a fair bit of time resting, preferably with a view of trees which I love and find very therapeutic (I have well-positioned chairs in the house and a comfortable garden lounger!)

 

 

 

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