Over the years, I have taken up a great many hobbies.

Well, strictly speaking, I have considered taking up a great many hobbies. I have had wonderful ideas, purchased all the necessary supplies, brought them home, unpacked them and arranged them lovingly on the dining table, otherwise known as the Hobby Space, ready for the fabulous projects I fully intended to undertake.

A few years ago, we had an exchange student from Germany staying with us. Maya, otherwise known as the Enthusiastic Kid, was a lovely girl who shared so many of our interests that she could quite easily have been our own.

One day, I decided that what our household really needed was matching pyjamas.

Long-Suffering Husband and Enthusiastic Kid were, naturally, thrilled.

We pictured ourselves sitting around the Christmas tree in our matching nightwear, the very image of a perfect family. There would be wholesome breakfasts, cosy evenings cuddled together on the sofa watching It’s a Wonderful Life, and quite possibly a light dusting of snow outside the window.

You get the picture.

So off Enthusiastic Kid and I went to the haberdashery, where we purchased a sewing machine, fabric, patterns and every conceivable accessory required for the manufacture of three sets of matching pyjamas.

Having dragged our purchases home, we unpacked everything, spread it across the dining table and stood back to admire it.

And there it stayed.

For weeks.

Until two days before Christmas, when we realised that we were expecting eight guests for Christmas dinner and would, regrettably, require the use of the dining table.

What followed was a magnificent bout of scurryfunge, that peculiarly satisfying word for the frantic cleaning and tidying one does when visitors are imminent.

The entire enterprise was hastily packed away.

Two years later, having produced precisely zero pairs of pyjamas and never actually used the sewing machine, I gave the lot to Mother.

Since then, I have planned and provisioned several other hobbies. I have embroidery kits, crochet hooks, wreath-making supplies, card-making equipment, scrapbooking materials, oil paints, canvases and an assortment of other creative necessities.

All of which are currently packed in boxes in storage, some 500 kilometres away.

I have, however, finally come to an important realisation.

I do have a hobby.

It may not be particularly productive, and I doubt anyone will ever admire the results at a craft fair, but it is a hobby nonetheless.

My hobby is shopping for hobby supplies.

And I am exceptionally good at it.