Please find me a hobby that is easy

[Imatorturedpoet]

The only hobby I have is reading. I'd love to be creative, but I'm not at all artistic and have no imagination!

I'm looking for something that isn't too expensive, that I can do at home, fairly easy and will give me a sense of achievement!

I can knit and crochet a bit, but don't enjoy it, possibly due to it causing pain in my hands (fibromyalgia and arthritis).

Definitely not sport, fibromyalgia means I've little energy most of the time and my joints and feet ache.

I'm in my late fifties. I've no interest in video games.

Sorry to be so picky, it's just I've tried many things, but didn't get on with them ... diamond painting was so boring and fiddly for example!

Jigsaw puzzles.

Charity shops are full of them
You can switch off and it exercises your brain without you actually having to create anything

You do seem to be rejecting a lot of suggestions, OP. You won't find a new hobby if you don't try a few things.

@Imatorturedpoet Can you sew very basic running stitch? I will happily send you a little slow stitching kit if you fancy a go. It’s very therapeutic and relaxing.

@Imatorturedpoet Agree the outlay for a switch is a lot (although Switch Lites are cheaper, and all you need for a solo player). Do you have a CEX nearby where you might get a second hand one? There's some on eBay for about £100.

You could then ask on the gaming boards here for suggestions of games you might enjoy. The big names can be expensive but there's loads of little enjoyable puzzles and games on the online Nintendo store for pennies.

As you've got some hobbies and you volunteer, you've tried other things , perhaps say what else you want a hobby to provide or fulfil so suggestions can relate to what you want to get out of it .

you sound like me healthwise

I do virtual Bigfooting, seeing as I do not live in America, I scan the Google maps of the Pacific Northwest looking for anything that could be of interest or a Bigfoot!

I also read a lot and enjoy television. I am going to sign up to be an online campaigner too

I'm afraid that's out of my budget at the moment. I'll keep looking though.

Thank you, I can sew basic stitches. I'm not sure what slow stitching is, but that would be very kind. Do you want to message me and I'll send through money for postage 😊

I'm struggling with that 😂 I think I have a short attention span, possibly adhd, so ideally need quick results.

I'm going to look at painting by numbers. Can anyone recommend some good ones, that aren't too expensive?

I've bought a model kit of the Titanic today 😊 It's quite a basic one, just so I can see if I enjoy it.

I do like the thought of making things, just don't like it taking too long. I do knit fingerless gloves for my daughter, that's about the length of my attention span and also how much I can do before my hands hurt too much.

I may have missed something here but why do you need a hobby if you don't enjoy common pastimes?
You like reading. That works for me. That and crosswords.
Otherwise a netflix subscription might do the trick.

You scrapbook anything and everything. A photo from a nice day out. A leaf you picked up on a walk. A invitation.

Lots of courses on scrapbooking.

I am wondering through you have 2 hobbies reading and bird watching. What are you looking for with a 3rd hobby? Time relaxing? Learning? Artistic? Exercise? (I saw you said no sports) more if you know what is at the core that may get better suggestions.

That sounds intriguing, have you ever found anything?

Something that would interest me is recognising stars and planets in the night sky, might look for a fairly basic book to start with. I think there's an app too, will look into that.

Are there free courses on scrapbooking or a book? I like that idea.

I'd be happy to find something quite relaxing. Artistic would be great, but I'm not at all!

I just feel there's something missing. I do quite like puzzles, crosswords etc.

Geoguessr is good. You get dumped anywhere in the world using Google maps street view and have to figure out where you are in about 2 and a half minutes. You get 5 places in the daily game. It’s geoguessr.com. You can play a basic game for free or about £4 a month for all access (and can compete against friends£

I second colouring books. Who cares if it looks crap, it's the doing it that's fun and relaxing and I get a chance to listen to my audiobook of choice. I don't have the attention span to read any more and I love books so the next best thing is listening to them.

I like jigsaws and have set up my living room so it’s easy to jigsaw in 😁 Love the idea of virtual Bigfoot finding and might look into it!

If you go for walks in nature there is a free app called iNaturalist which you use to identify plants, animals and birds. It’s astonishing how many plants there are in fairly bog standard weedy sidings and it is very interesting.

There is another app called wheelmap where you can say whether places are wheelchair accessible or not to help wheelchair users if you’re more of a potterer around town. That would be a nice hobby 😊

Decoupage. Basically, gluing bits of paper to an object using PVA (or special decoupage glue, which contains some varnish for a nice finish). Any object - glass, wood, cardboard, plastic etc. There's special paper but you can use single napkin leaves or tissue paper. A friend of a friend used to use old comics like The Beano, decorate wooden dining chairs with them, and sell them at vintage fairs. I'm not so ambitious, but I have decorated old (Guu) glass dishes for Christmas, old tissue boxes to make matching storage boxes, etc. It's so easy a child can do it, there's no right or wrong, and I find it really soothing. Don't like it? Cover it with a different design.

Sometimes local councils does such things. You tube is also your friend for this.

Lots of scrapbooking videos on YT, usually linked to suppliers.
All you need are some items (usually photos), card to stick them to and a folder to keep them in afterwards. When I started the albums were all 12x12 inch size, but these are expensive and harder to find now, so I'd recommend using A4 albums and card. People usually decorate the pages (using special paper of course, and 'embellishments' which coordinate with the special paper (of course!), and finally write about the photo(s) ('journalling').

You don't want a hobby

You just want stuff to fill your time.

Start with a quality newspaper crossword. Keeps you busy till lunchtime

I got really into perfumes when my CFS was really bad- read a few books, blogs, ordered some samples to smell to learn about different notes. I keep a spreadsheet on all the different ones I’ve sampled and my thoughts and because I never buy full bottles it’s not really expensive. It’s nice because when you have energy you can read about it and when you’re totally crashing you can just lie down and smell nice 😂

If sewing is not out of the equation, you can pick up embroidery kits pretty cheaply that include everything you need. You could start with a set like this, which takes you through lots of different stitches and techniques and then try more decorative kits.

amzn.eu/d/8WLcG0S

Pebble painting? You can buy or make your own pebble shapes if you don't want to take them from the wild. You use acrylic paints and can make dot patterns if you don't want to paint pictures. Once it's all dry, you spray them with lacquer and that brings out the colours and protects the paint. You don't have to be skilled at art or painting as many designs are simple. Buy a dotting set from Amazon or ebay if you like the dot pattern ones.