Keeping brain active on maternity leave?

[mimolette]

Just wondering what hobbies/activities etc others have done while on maternity leave?
I had a pretty full-on job before and, although I am loving spending lots of time with my new DD, I think in the long run I need to find something to keep my brain ticking over and give me some non-baby conversation topics. Ideally it would be something I could do (at least partly) from home, when she's asleep.
Looking for inspiration, and would love to hear others' experiences.

Maybe not quite what you are looking for but I found listening to radio 4 kept me sane.

i subscribed to the Economist with good intentions to read it front to back every week. I failed miserably. Only thing i managed to do was go to weekly pilates and yoga but thats not really a brain activity. You are right to want to stimulate your brain though, when i went back to work at 7 month i was useless for about a month because my brain couldn't compute and i couldn't hold a normal conversation.

Load up your iPod with interesting podcasts. This American Life / Radio Lab or similar. Listen to when pushing pram around in daze. Gives you something to think / talk about without requiring you to 'find time' to do it. Kept me sane!

All good suggestions above but bear in mind that as your baby grows they will have much more awake time and you'll have less time than you think for all the things you planned to do - I assumed I would be able to read loads, do all these projects etc but it just never happened. I did make lots of new friends on the "mummy" circuit locally though - although I know some people find that very tedious and wouldn't want to.