Nothing matches it, but I do love to travel. London is my favorite, and Hawaii is a close second. My daughter and I have booked a tour to Sicily next spring. She loves Greek ruins, and I'm game for just about anything.

I learned to read at four, also, and have read passionately ever since. I grew up in the country and didn't have access to a public library. My grade school library didn't have a wide selection either, and we didn't have a lot of books at home although my mother loved to read, too. High school was better but still pretty small. When I went away to college, I wrote home that the library was filled with fiction that I didn't have time to read because for the first time in my life, I actually had to study. AND THEN! I moved to a big city, and there's been no tomorrow. Books have kept me sane during the tough times.

How funny -- I think I was also four when my older sister taught me to read. I don't remember this; I feel like I have always known how to read. I can still vividly remember our local library where my mother would take me and I would check out a stack of books and then couldn't wait to get home and plop down on the bed to read them. I can almost remember how the library smelled and where the fiction section was located.

My only other passion is music. It was so much fun to get an iPod so that I can put all of my 3300 songs (so far) in one small place. I still have several hundred vinyl LPs, too. I think I really prefer the sound of those, but the iPod is just so convenient.

I was passionate about travel when I was younger, but I've become a real homebody over the past several years. I'd love to see Europe again, but the thought of making that long flight just puts me off.

Reading is so much a part of me that I can't imagine what my life would have been if, for some unfathomable reason, I had never read much. Would I even be me?

I have played the French horn since grade school. I wanted to play the flute. But the band director needed brass players and already had twenty-something wannabe flautists, so he talked me into trying the horn. I was dreadful because for several weeks I couldn't coax a sound out of it -- I didn't have the lung capacity to force air through twelve feet of coiled tubing. But when I managed my very first rude blare, I was so proud and completely smitten. I played in marching bands, orchestras, quintets, quartets, etc. I continue to play in ensembles whenever a horn is needed, especially during the Thanksgiving/Christmas season.

I am a totally undisciplined piano player (pianist is too dignified a word for what I do); but, what the heck, the idea of only virtuosi being allowed to play and enjoy the piano is ridiculously elitist, in my opinion. So I love banging away every chance I get.

Traveling is a love-hate situation with me. I did too much of it during my career, and then I married a geophysicist/volcanologist. If I expect to see and be with him for more than a couple of days a month, I better be ready to go wherever a volcano has blown or might blow its top. Still, there are too many places I've never been that I would like to see -- some of them with plenty of volcanoes (Iceland, Japan).

I, too, would not be able to cope sometimes if I couldn't disappear into another place via a book. I love something to make me laugh but there are so few authors of that kind. I have to go to the humorous mystery section.
I think I would say that travelling would be my top favourite pastime because if a trip were offered, I would drop the book I was reading. Sadly, no one offers me any now and I don't like going solo. Back to the books!

Books come first and gardening is second over the year but definitely first during the growing season. I also read a lot about gardening, essay type books rather than coffee table books. I don't like to travel as much as I did when I was younger and healthier. With COPD I can't go anywhere where the air is very polluted so I may not be able to accompany my husband to Shanghai next fall. I am also less adventurous than I was and prefer countries where I can read the papers and perhaps even buy a book in the local language.

Annpan, I am rereading Bill Bryson's Notes from a Small Island and it's laugh out funny, fun and travel combined.

Mariannese: Yes, I agree with you. I read that book and enjoyed it very much.

I, too, learned to read at home before first grade. I have been such a prolific reader for so long that I cannot imagine not being able to escape into books. I have a friend who has macular degeneration and I cannot imagine being in his shoes. My parents refused to get a TV when I was growing up, and as an "only" child, I often retreated into books. Reading is my first passion.

Next to it is walking in the woods enjoying the wild flora and fauna, or strolling along a river beach, looking for sea glass and shells.

Lastly, the ballet and classical music are equal passions.

I have several intense interests. For many years I have been a passionate gardener. I grow a collection of mostly heirloom roses, though I grow many other plants as well, from the vegetable beds to the orchard to the native plant area. I love fabric and sew everything from jackets and dresses to quilts to costumes. I have a powerful response to beauty of landscape, and love to travel to see and enter into those landscapes.

But if I were forced to choose only one thing, it would be reading without hesitation. I love books. They allow me to experience so much more than I would otherwise get from the too-short lives we live.

Rosefolly

From time to time, over the years, I have often wondered if I had to make a choice of losing one would I pick sight or hearing. Reading books and listening to classical music make my life complete. Interestingly, I cannot do both at the same time as I find I stray away from the book when an interesting passage is anticipated. If I could no longer see I would certainly miss the beauty of the earth, and if I could no longer read I would certainly miss the beauty and wisdom of the written word.

Nancy

No, I DON'T like books on tape - I need to see, handle, smell. . . the real thing!

I have been an avid reader since an early age too. According to my mother, before that (at about age 3) I had memorized "The Night Before Christmas" and used to pull out the book and pretend to read aloud to my aunts when they visited. Except for holding the book upside down, I might have pulled it off!

Reading lead to many of my other great loves, mostly travel and learning about anything and everything. Growing up in typical American suburbia, where in those days everyone tried to be a cookie-cutter image of everyone else, I escaped all over the world, and all over the universe via reading.

Reading also lead to my love of baking bread and cooking, as one entire bookcase plus in my home shows.

I, too, have been an avid reader since I was young. I am not too sure at what age I broke the code to reading, but it must have been less than five or so as I could read in play school.

The other passion that comes close to reading is photography (for both exhibitions and for me). I first got a "real" SLR camera for my 16th birthday, and entered the digital camera age a few years ago. Digital has transformed how I see photographs in that I can see *instantly* whether the image "worked" or not. I cannot imagine going back to film and having to take it into a drugstore and wait for it to be developed. I am not that enthusiastic about Photoshopping my work - I try to leave my images alone as I think Photoshop can make false work at times. (I am not a Luddite with it, by any means, but do think that there needs to be different categories in photo shows for "enhanced" (i.e. photoshop) and "non-enhanced"...) Skilful use of Photoshop can make anyone look good, whilst actually taking good pics takes practice.

I am not really interested in the technicalities of photography - more the actual photo itself (positioning of objects in the pic etc.)

Other interests: taking advantage of cultural opportunites that occur in town and learning nearly anything new (although I quiver at number-related topics).

kathleen - Your story brought back a wonderful memory of my daughter (28 today!) who, when she was about 3 years old, used to march around the living room on her tiptoes passionately reading her favorite picture books ... upside down. She could do all of The Owl and the Pussycat. It was very impressive. (She did have a little trouble with the runcible spoon.)

I forgot to add that my daughter is still a voracious, and fast, reader -- mostly fantasy for some reason. It must have been Edward Lear's early influence. :)

Here is a link that might be useful: The Owl and the Pussycat

What memories that brings back, sarah canary - my mother was a very big fan of Edward Lear and had all of us memorize at least one of his poems at an early age - I can still do most of The Owl and the Pussycat. That website is wonderful!

Re "The Owl and the Pussycat": I can recall nearly all of it, but only if I sing it. In the fifties I had a record -- maybe a 45rpm but I think it was a 78rpm because I remember it as bigger and thicker -- that I wonder if anyone else remembers. How about you, Vicki, with your 3300! songs on your iPod and all those LPs? I've searched YouTube, which often astounds me with the stuff people have unearthed, but so far without success.

When I was a child, somehow I got the idea that a 'runcible spoon' was one of those fancy, oversized serving spoons with a fluted bowl and a scalloped edge. I really thought that was what Lear was talking about, so I took to calling that type of spoon a 'runcible'. Years later, to my chagrin, I learned that Lear had just made up the word -- a nonsense word -- and there is no such thing as a runcible spoon. Too late, I had already passed my mistaken identification to my brothers, my husband, my sons, and no telling how many other people. I jokingly still refer to getting out the runcibles for sitdown dinners during the holidays. Then I have to explain the joke to anyone who wonders what I'm talking about. :-)

I can't remember if I could read before going to school, but I suspect so as I have a sister 7 years older than me who liked to play 'school' with me.

I have thought about this since Siobhan posted, and really there is no other passion in my life like reading. I like music but mostly only listen in the car these days, and I have had many interests which have waned for one reason or another. I do like knitting, but the computer, along with going back to work, seems to have killed that for me, as with cross stitch. I hope I will get back to both of those hobbies one day.
The only thing that comes close is the socialising I do on the computer. I come here, go to a very large site which started as a Diana Gabaldon fan site but is now a lot more, use Facebook, and go to another fan site, this time for a singer, where we are now a big community who meet at concerts.
But I'd rather be without the computer than without a book.

Webster's New International defines a runcible spoon as "a forklike utensil with two broad prongs and one sharp, curved prong as used for serving hors d'oeuvres" and does attribute it to Lear.

Reading is such an enriching passion.
My first trip to a lending library was an amazing adventure that introduced me to a lifelong enjoyment of books.
I love having a book waiting for me, to look forward to curling up with and sinking into the story again.
My other passions include traditional rug hooking ( not latch hook), knitting challenging patterns, gardening .... and anything of nature.
Although I've dabbled at most creative arts throughout my life, I find that certain ones fill my spirit with the passion that fulfills me.
Knowing that I have such a buffet of wonderful , creative projects waiting each day ...with unknown new adventures to come...makes me smile and feel that giddy, all-is-well feeling that is such a part of my spirit.

And I wonder....what do people do who have no such passions?!

rule34.....

LOL that sounds like a "spork" only meaner !

Frieda -- Sadly, the Owl and the Pussycat is not one of my 3300 songs. That would be fun, though. I do have another old favorite from WWII era (not a nursery rhyme) called "Comin' In on a Wing and a Prayer" by a group called the Golden Gate Quartet. I'm not sure what that has to do with anything, but it came to mind when you asked.

Here you go Frieda - a link that you might enjoy.

Here is a link that might be useful: The Owl and the Pussycat

*Rescuing and transporting homeless pets-I have adopted 6 dogs, four of them Siberian Huskies and three cats. Two Sibes died in the past year and I now have only 2 dogs and 3 cats.
*Listening to NPR.
*Traveling , mostly in the US. My favorite place on earth is coastal Maine. Vacationing is expensive because I pay the pet sitter $15 a day. In June I spent 2 weeks traveling the eastern coast of the US.
*Searching the internet for whatever subject I currently can't give up.
*Reading will consume me if I don't discipline myself. I really do have to put down the book and go feed the dogs.
Nancy

I started school in England and know I was reading fully by the age of 5. I remember lining up in the headmistresses' office to get my next 'level' book (once you'd read a certain number of books at level one, you moved up to level two, etc.)

My second passion would be listening to music but I find it relates to my reading/story passion as I turn any song/album into a soundtrack for some made-up story in my head (I don't really write anything down). That is what I have always done as a way to relax or get away from the world, from the time before I could read so I guess music was technically my first love but it was always combined with making up stories. Does this sound familiar to anyone?

I also enjoy photography but, perhaps like you Lemonhead, I am not very technical about it. I like taking pictures of things and trying to get interesting angles/positions, getting interesting colouring and lighting (without 'faking' it) and also taking candid photos of friends and family. I have been thinking about getting a more professional camera rather than the point and shoot type I have.

Like many of you have already said , I would like very much to be able to play an instrument, but I think I am the most tone - deaf person living on earth. When I was eleven and I was in a boarding school where learning to play an instrument was compulsory, they asked me what instrument I would like to play and my answer was the guitar, but the teacher in charge of such thing asked me âÂÂshow me your handsâ I complied with his request, and he went on saying âÂÂoh no with such beautiful hands and long fingers you must play the piano, besides once you can play the piano you will be easily able to play whatever instrument you likeâ The fact was IâÂÂve got quite ordinary hands, but HE was very fond of the piano, so he used to say the same thing to every child he met. The days at that boarding school were organized in this way: in the morning school, after lunch from two through four studying and in this span of time each of us had half an hour of time to train on our chosen instrument, then one hour of recess afterward studying again till half past seven. In the school there were 14 pianos and most of the them were seldom used, because kids werenâÂÂt so keen on playing them , but I was, so instead of using only my allotted time I used to go from piano to piano for two hour in succession. So when my âÂÂcolleaguesâ were , more or less at exercise 20 I was already coping with number 90. But there was no knack in my fingers, only mechanical repetition. At the end of the school year, like in all but the schools worldwide, there was the usual show that we had to perform in front of our parents and relatives. In the boarding school there was a really beautiful theatre, with a real stage, lights and curtains. I had to play a very easy piece of music, but the problem was that I had to play it four hands , and it goes without saying , my partner practiced it very little, so once on the stage everything went wrong, I could manage my part quite well but not him , and halfway through the performance, full of shame up to my hair, I run away crying my soul out of my heart. My parents and the piano teacher tried to comfort me by asking ⦠but whatâÂÂs the matter? And I ⦠everything went wrong we botched badly ⦠and they â¦but no Massimo, no one noticed anything they clapped you ⦠but all of no avail. It was, and still remains one of the most painful moments of my life. (Just my little story)

grelobe

Stoneangel -

You mentioned about a more technical camera - I highly recommend the Canon Rebel XTi. It's a mid-range camera but takes prof level pics. Plus it's so *easy* to use. (A plus for me as I am not a techie person.)

It has nearly paid its own way in prize money if that gives a clue about how good the camera is... :-)

Grelobe-

Your childhood piano story is so sad...

Do you still piano or has this event scarred you for life? :-)

Grelobe - Wow. You put me right there in the room watching your painful performance. I hope that you can still find some joy in playing the piano in spite of this memory.

I used to play the guitar, but just for myself and my family. I found it a great comfort when I was upset about something to just sick and pick out songs and sing along. I haven't played for several years now, since arthritis as made it painful to push on the strings.

Grelobe you piano learning experience is similar to what happened to me. When I was about 9-10 years the Mother Superior of my soon-to-be convent school, said "Child, show me your hands." After a few moments of palm stretching she announced that they were just right for piano playing (ie I had the correct number of fingers on each hand) so I was signed up for music lessons, for which an extra tuition fee was charged. We spent half an hour a day in a small 'practice room' going through scales and simple pieces and then going on to take graded exams. The violin followed (the Vile Din as it was known by my family). My natural musical ability was very modest and when I think what my poor teachers must have put up with . . . . I do remember that playing 'chopsticks' was banned, it was claimed it would damage the piano. ;-)

SC, I know "Comin' In on a Wing and Prayer," but I don't think the versions I've heard include the Golden Gate Quartet. I think it was a Frank Sinatra record that my mother had. I love WWII-era songs. Among your 3300, what's your favorite genre?

Thanks for the link to "The Owl and the Pussycat" recording! I hope it's set to the same tune that I remember. (Oh lovely pussy/pussy my love/what a beautiful pussy you are, you are...)I'm collecting all sorts of things that I want to eventually introduce to my newborn granddaughter.

Oh, Grelobe, how unfortunate for you to experience that humiliation! Duets always depend on well-matched partners. It sounds as if the one you had was a bit of a slacker. I can certainly empathize because I've been mortified on several occasions; but unlike your situation, it was something stupid I did myself. One of my worst happened when I was twelve or thirteen years old:

My mother was our church's organist. She was going to be absent one Sunday and a substitute was needed. I could supposedly play the organ and the piano, so I was asked if I could fill in -- I could play the piano if I preferred. Sure! I was glad to.

Things began fine, but I had this problem: if I didn't have someone to keep the rhythm for me, I would gradually speed up and not even be aware of it. By the end of the third hymn, the congregation was panting...and twittering.

When I stopped, I knew something was wrong. (It may help to understand my situation if you know that Lutherans are rather sedate singers in church.) The pastor, behind his pulpit, cleared his throat: "Ahh-ahem. Well, that was certainly invigorating!" That broke the ice and the whole congregation guffawed. I turned fuchsia and wanted to slither out of the sanctuary. Needless to say, it was several years before I was asked to fill in again, and that was only out of desperation.

Frieda - It looks like Country is the preferred genre, followed closely by Rock. There are very few modern performers in my country lineup, however. I've got some real oldies like Eddy Arnold, Patsy Cline and Hank Williams, Sr., moving up through Merle, Waylon, Willie and Kris, and then on to Randy Travis and Alan Jackson. I'm also a big Jimmy Buffett fan.

My Rock isn't exactly what today's listeners would consider rock either, I would guess. I've got lots of Beach Boys; Beatles; Crosby, Stills and Nash; James Taylor -- obviously I'm a child of the 60s/70s. I never liked really hard rock.

Probably more info than you wanted, but it was fun for me to look through and see how many songs I had in various genres.

This is a very interesting thread!

It seems funny to me that most really avid readers seldom mention playing any kind of sports as a "great love." On the other hand, most sports enthusiasts I know do not read very much. I like several sports, both to play and watch - I particularly like tennis and I itch if I do not get to play as often as I want. When my sports minded friends learn that I also like to read a lot, they act like it is something unusual. Tennis, walking and reading are the three things I most enjoy. Woodnymph2, I am with you.:)

Grelobe's story is so poignant. Friedag, yours strikes me as funny. Sorry! The difference is, I think, you got over your mortification, but I am worried that Grelobe has not.

Interesting thread indeed! I remember coming home after the first day of second grade and telling my mother angrily that we have "reading" again, which I considered ridiculous because we had already learned to read in first grade. My mother's amusement did not improve my mood.

I am somewhat obsessive about journaling. I maintain a reading journal and I write trip journals. I also buy an appointment book every year, not for appointments, but to record a few sentences at the end of each day. I hesitate to call this a passion because I often regard it as a chore (strange, since it's entirely voluntary).

A passion that I do not allow myself to indulge in very often is working jigsaw puzzles. They can eat up my time - time I want to spend on other activities. However, I have shelves full of them and am always on the lookout for new ones that meet my requirements for a "good puzzle." Man, I just can't wait to retire!

kathy t - My husband is just as compulsive about jigsaw puzzles. We used to get him a new one every Christmas, but we quit doing that. He would stay up all night to finish one. Luckily, he usually had the next day off.

My problem exactly! And I know several other people with the same affliction.

A Christmas puzzle is a tradition at my family's celebration. Two family members are even more compulsive about it than I (and better at it too).

Kathy, I also jot the doings of the day in a small diary and have done this for many years. I find it comes in very handy at times when I need to recall certain events that happened some years ago. Memory and the noted fact are sometimes at startling variance!

SC, good stuff you have there! Thanks for looking it up for me. I am always fascinated with the kinds of songs people have on their playlists. My own taste is eclectic -- some would say bizarre since I don't see anything incongruous about following, say, Kiri Te Kanawa with Doug Kershaw. I'm a child of the sixties, too, and earlier. In the fifties, I adored listening to the Louisiana (Luzianna) Hayride and the Grand Ole Opry. (Whew! I get nostalgic for the crackles and pops of atmospherics, and the electric smell of hot vacuum tubes.) I think I could appreciate an iPod for bringing all the good songs together without all the garbage that every era also produced. But one thing I miss nowadays is the variety: I know some people who only listen to one type of music, and I am as uncomprehending of that as they are of my attitude of throwing it all in together and listening to whatever comes out.

Lydia, what do you mean? Nigh on fifty years and I still haven't lived it down! It's a family story, a tale on me that gets trotted out too often by someone, if I'm not telling it on myself. :-) Seriously though, I know what you mean. I hope Grelobe lets us know how things turned out.

As for sports: I suspect that many of us here at RP once loved athletic endeavors, but perhaps never as much as reading. I was a basketball guard back when girls played half-court. At the time I resented the forwards getting to shoot the basket when we guards only got to steal the ball from the opponent and advance it to the midline, where we had to screech to a halt (so as not to step over the dratted line and get a penalty) to advance it to the glamour girls of our own team at the other end so that they could score. Watching modern women's basketball, though, makes me think of the grace and finesse that was required to play half-court...full-court appears to me to be just back and forth, back and forth most of the time.

I ran track, too, including hurdle jumping. Loved snow skiing and I was still doing that as recently as ten years ago, but I doubt that my knees would let me now.

So, anyway, younger readers are probably interspersing books with sports, but we of a certain age have had to let some of the physical activity go. That's probably why you don't read much about sports from us.

frieda -- You're right; that 's what makes the iPod so great. I just set in on Shuffle and it might jump from Israel Kamakawio'ole (who you may be sick of hearing, living in HI) to Rosemary Clooney to Bette Midler and then on to Little Anthony and the Imperials. Great fun. But I try to skip the Christmas music until after Thanksgiving. :)

Seems like some of us have unpleasant piano stories from our childhoods. Here's mine: I so longed to take ballet lessons, but was forced into piano lessons by my parents. I was just learning to stop biting my nails when I began piano and was so proud of letting go a bad habit. Then --- my mean piano teacher would grab my fingers and cut off my newly grown nails, claiming they would interfere with my performance. Not only this, she kept a wooden ruler and would rap my fingers when I made a mistake on the keys. I was so nervous that I went back to biting my nails. How I endured those 7 years of forced lessons I'll never understand. It's a wonder that I do love and appreciate classical piano, however, despite my ordeals ....

I, too, learned to play piano when I was a young 'un, but the lessons never took. Plus I never practised except for the night before my piano lesson. And THEN I begged my mum and dad to pay for me to have violin (Vee - I like your phrase better!) lessons.

However, I realized as the term progressed, that actually what I really wanted to do was carry the violin case whether or not it had a violin in it or not. Who knows why I wanted to carry an empty violin case, but that was the case. And so - many pounds sterling later and not a lot of practise, both the instruments were laid to rest at peace and Quiet ruled the House.

My bro, though, was extremely musical...

Lemonhead I quit piano as soon as I got back home

Lydia katznflowers donâÂÂt worry about me I got over it

First of all want to thank you for your concern, I didnâÂÂt expect to raise so much of it, but as I said I got over it, besides my boarding - school - life didnâÂÂt use to pivot only around piano and training for it and nothing else; as far as my school grades were concerned , they were just in the average range, IâÂÂve never been the most brilliant, but not even the dullest one. What I was very good at, was sport. Whatever sport I tried I was successful because I used to be (sigh) really coordinate in my movements, so I was always âÂÂelegantâ and deft
Early in the summer, in my boarding school a kind of Little Olympics were organized, every kid had to enroll in at least 12 races, from running to biking to jumping and so on, I enrolled in 14 races and won 11 times (two of them were relay races) once I arrived second and once third, so my days back there werenâÂÂt so bad after all.

grelobe

I'm another one with an interesting mix of music on my MP3 player. I bet none of you have Aussie Hiphop, as I do! I also like one US Hiphop artist, a pair that call themselves Atmosphere. Their individual names (not the ones they were given by their mothers!) are Ant and Slug. Other than that, it is nearly all 60s-80s tracks (Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel, Phil Collins, Sting etc) and modern Celtic music from groups like Capercaillie and The Corrs, plus the man who won Australian Idol in 2006, Damien Leith.

Lemonhead- a belated thank you for the camera suggestion - very helpful. I may be getting myself a camera for Christmas (unless hubby's stuck for ideas)...

Woodnymph, I had a very similar piano teacher. My Mom could never understand why I would have to be dragged to my weekly piano lessons. It's amazing how some teachers lack the ability to encourage a love of the subject or skill they are teaching to their students. I had about four years of piano lessons all-in and I cannot play a note and have no desire to - even though I love all kinds of music. I wonder whether it was just never in me to learn piano or whether it was a lingering resentment which caused my lack of interest.