Hobbies

Aren’t hobbies a great thing!

Mine is military history. I love reading about the exploits of people in the past and have a particular fascination with World War 2. Mainly the generals and the major decisive battles. To try and even comprehend the great forces at work at say the Battle of Stalingrad. Understandably the suffering was terrible but the numbers of combatants involved strike me as unimaginable in terms of scale and geography.

At home I have amassed a whole library of various military history books spanning across from the Roman Empire to Victorian battles, WW1 and WW2 and a number of biographies for famous generals. I guess I am an armchair general revelling in these characters from times past controlling armies. I yearn to expand my knowledge on themes like the Mongols or Nelson. Not so much gathering facts and figures (of which I am terrible at remembering) but rather just to get immersed in the history.

I’m such a keen military enthusiast that I love visiting museums or famous battle sites whenever I visit other countries or parts of the UK. This of course drives my wife nuts and we have to usually compromise on how much of the holiday will be spent doing that and I usually have to relent to a trip to a garden or something in exchange. Now with young kids, military museums filled with tanks and killing equipment are even harder to get to see.

Once we were in France and staying along the coast. I happened to view some nice WW2 gun emplacements on a nearby hill and accessible by the coastal path leading to it. Now there was a nice map that showed us the way and alerted us to the fact that we would have to pass a nudist beach on the way. Now in no way was this meant to be a foray into the delights of nudist beaches which may very well be other people’s cups of tea when it comes to interest. But I was glad I was forewarned so that as we followed the coastal walk we could avert our eyes to the bronzed Frenchman, legs astride with an enormous todger, splayed (I thought a little too keenly by the coastal path). We carried on a reached the concrete emplacements on the hill when we noticed a number of young men bobbing out from the bushes surrounding the hill and walking back to the beach in ones and twos. I remarked to my wife that perhaps they too were military enthusiasts! She of course just laughed and murmured that I needed to look up dogging when I got home.

I think hobbies are important and I understand why people do them. Some do it to relax. Some do it for prestige. Some do if because their friends do it. Some have turned their hobbies into great money spinners and businesses. For whatever reason a hobby of interests will round you off as a person and can fill one of your pies. (refer my post https://steemit.com/life/@genxlifelessons/how-is-your-pie)