Crap 'hobbies' you had as a child.

[DrMadelineMaxwell]

I used to go around the village where I used to live with my notebook and pen and write down number plates. I can still recall my Dad's car plate.

This is a cause of much mirth to my kids who have clearly never known the heady excitement of a long sunday afternoon pre internet days.

Does anyone remember collecting the plastic tags from loaves of bread and clipping them onto the spokes of your bike wheels to make a clicking noise?

Yes. And putting Smartie tube lids in between the spokes to decorate the wheels.

DB had a hole in the garden next to the shed.

I had a radio station that broadcast on a Saturday evening during Dr Who. From behind the sofa of course.

I had worm and ladybird 'farms'
Also used to take eggs from the fridge and try and hatch them
Made magazines and designed outfits for when I was a famous fashion designer.
Clearly I was deluded

Yes, had a scrap book and "a where to put it book" (in the bin?) 🙂

And glooks & Happy gang collections on shelves

@NewName54321
What did your DB do with his 'hole next to the shed'?

Don't know if anyone else has mentioned this (and it's not really a hobby), but I loved my Squirmle, aka Squiggle, a long furry caterpillar-type thing, on 'invisible string.'
I spent hours placing it somewhere, making it move and acting all surprised that it moved 'by itself.' I loved my Squirmle.

I used to set up appointment books for riding lessons. I carefully managed each rider with what horse they would ride.

I also used to set up riding schools with jumps and drag my poor elderly dog over them.

I wrote names from gravestones in a notebook.

Ginntonic yes to the jumps. I used to the a skipping rope to her wrist and drag my poor little sister over them!

Tie a skipping rope

My friend and I had a Beano club where we’d pretend to be Beano characters (I was always Minnie the Minx) and hang out down the side of said friend’s garage sitting on car tyres painted with the characters’ names.

I created magazines complete with fictional articles, agony letters, and make overs.

I collected stickers in a sticker album, soaps, semi precious rocks, turtles from Kinder eggs, and would display them proudly upon my shelves.

I used to eat up jumps on the lawn and won infinite events and gymkhanas. I also regularly rode the Grand National on my rocking horse. And won, of course.

I collected flower petals and make ‘perfumes’ in jam jars which I’d try and sell at the garden gate.

I mixed up potions using whatever funny objects I could find around the house and store them in plastic delicatessen tubs on my shelves. I remember opening one after several weeks and my bedroom stank of vomit for about three days!

*set up
**runny objects

God I hate autocorrect

We (me and the girl who lived there) used to sit on the large back porch of the house over the road and make sweets with plasticine.

I had a weird obsession with dead animals and would be fascinated if I saw any roadkill.

Not a hobby as such but my dad bought us a bit of rusty old scaffolding as a climbing frame looking back it was dangerously high and we used to spend a lot of time hanging upside down in the garden. Miracle we didnt get tetanus.

Fingerknitting
Art straws

I absolutely love this thread! Some have given me a right laugh!

I did the Argos catalogue thing a 100 times over. I would sit and design rooms using the items from the catalogue.

Also did the collecting flowers to make rotten perfume.

Another crap hobby was putting all the teddies out in the garden and pretending to go the 'shop' and taking my younger siblings to buy them

Me and my friend used to design new (and elaborate) ice creams and ice lollies.

I collected animal ornaments. I would buy them in gift shops on days out.

I also made lists of what I would name my potential children. I remember particularly liking the names Stephanie and Erica

I used to spend ages drawing people then cut them out and play with them like dolls

Got given a MASSIVE collection of Barbie dolls from an older cousin. Was not a Barbie kind of child so used to create crime scenes for them and then go around the house with my little brother taking notes on what we'd found. There were some buried in pot plants, some "drowned in the sink", some hanging from miniature nooses all over the house. Most were either covered in lipstick or red nail varnish. My mum found one at the back of the cupboard last year which we'd obviously just forgotten about. It was taped to the wall with a toothpick forced through it's stomach and a leg missing.
We have yet to find the leg.

What did your DB do with his 'hole next to the shed'?

I didn't take too much notice - I had rose petal perfume to make!
I think he used Tonga trucks to move the dirt, and Action Man was out there a lot. Sometimes it filled with water, or he 'd dig out more of it. Mum would send him out to play in it when we argued.

Tonka trucks...

@Ginntoniconpause, I used to do that too - set up a series of jumps around the garden and forced our dog to jump round them as if they were a horse.

In the early days of digital watches, my brother and I used to time cars driving along our road, and log it in a log book.

My hobby was ice skating, although we lived nowhere near an ice rink...I used to tie plastics carrier bags to my feet with scrunchies then 'skate' around the carpets. All whilst wearing a costume of swimsuit and ra-ra skirt

I used to write down car number plates too! I think it was a winter hobby so me and my brother used to stand at the window and write the numbers in a note book.

We used to clean all brass coins we had with Brasso.

I used to write newspapers on the oldest typewriter in the world.

I also collected (somehow - I never had any money) those small flocked bears. Two on a seasaw, one at a cafe table with a cocktail umbrella, etc. I'll see if I can attach a pic...

There was a competition at school to do a scrapbook of the 1983 general election. I did this diligently every day and was the only child in the class to do bother doing it, i won a chocolate bar. I quite enjoyed doing it.