I have dug out my crochet hook and made myself a rather bright pair of mittens. Seeing as previously I’d not managed to crochet anything more complicated than a square I am pretty proud that I have knocked out two (almost) matching mittens.

In this blog, Lauren Elmore, Student Engagement Coordinator at CLL, shares how she has been using this period of uncertainty to take up new hobbies. 

Like many other people I have found myself with a lot of free time on my hands and not much to fill it with so I have been trying out new hobbies to starve off the boredom.

I am normally a very active person and enjoy getting out and about as much as possible. Whilst I am making the most of my one period of exercise a day (whilst being sure to stay 2m away from other people and not touch anything) I have also found ways to keep active indoors. YouTube is full of great workout videos for all abilities – you can find anything from an abs workout to Zumba on there. Even better are Warwick Sports’ free live classes streamed through Facebook. They have a couple of classes a day to get involved with (plus nobody can see you so you can make an idiot of yourself as much as you please!)

They say in extreme situations you find out a lot about yourself and one thing I have found out about myself is that I am the kind of person to panic buy a cross trainer. Because I did. To be honest it has been great – it has allowed me to keep active, burn off excess energy throughout the day, and helped with my sleep.

Away from exercise I have attempted some baking. Attempted being the operative word. I followed a very basic recipe for cheese scones and ended up with… cheese biscuits. I suspect this was down to the skills of the baker rather than the quality of the recipe. Still, they taste delicious with a cup of tea so no complaints from me but I will be sticking to mars bar crispy cakes in future.

I have also dug out my crochet hook and made myself a rather bright pair of mittens (I only had rainbow wool!). Seeing as previously I’d not managed to crochet anything more complicated than a square I am pretty proud that I have knocked out two (almost) matching mittens. I’ve even started a hat – wish me luck!

Whilst all these new hobbies are great, some days the sum total of my achievements is getting one question right on Popmaster and I am absolutely fine with that. It’s a strange world we’re living in so don’t feel you need to write the next great novel or out do Mary Berry in the kitchen, just focus on staying happy and healthy.