My mother and sisters belong to a social group specifically for women. It’s one of those quirky things that has been around for well over 100 years and is the biggest group specifically for women. They love the belonging and seeing the same friends over the ears. There are meetings with speakers to entertain and enlighten us and lots of other activities with walking clubs and craft group. There used to be a very big catering group too but the need to be careful with food choices and activities meant we gradually gave up on the cake making, except for the monthly meeting – when cake and everything else take over from the moment the last applause clapping subsides, and the cry for Tea is sounded.
Knowing how to control one’s activities so that you don’t just pile on weight can be a dicey thing. What sets off one person into might inspire another to take on a challenge. There are pockets of individual activity with book clubs; cookery and gardening are also high on their hobby agenda. Some of the members do a lot of sewing. One in particular makes costumes for the local theatre, particularly near Christmas when they put their pantomime on. It is all hands to the task and one woman’s obsession with sewing frilly garments has grown into an absolute monster. However she is content and so long as no body needs to find anything at all in her house, then she is happy. This came to the fore recently when we were gifted hundreds of items by the widower of a very good member in our group – there was so much, we had to take it in five separate deliveries. There were boxes of wool of every description; another two trugs were full of part used balls with no label. We also had five big bags full of odd tools and gadgets for making things like bobbles; knitting needles with accessories such as stitch and row counters; single knitting pins and many flexible circular needles. We had bags of kopok toy filling product to stuff the many half finish toys we found. The poor widower – he never knew what anything was when our pal was alive, and was so grateful when one of our number made contact with the family and offered to relieve hi of this treasure trove of hobby crafting materials. It was far more than any one human could use in a whole lifetime and it absolutely took over their home. Our dear pal had no off button and seed to bulk buy crafting materials with no discernable project in mind. Now that really was the crux of her problem. But although we couldn’t help her when alive, we have done a sterling job and helped by taking it all away so he could remember happy days with his wife and not have to think about wool, crochet hooks or bags of anything else!