Why I need this blog

I keep a list on my phone of the various ideas I have for blog entries and high on that list has always been “why did you start this blog in the first place?” today I was given a simple explanation as to why.

Head empty

For the first time in a while I went into my kitchen and prepared to bake a loaf of bread. While standing in front of my work surface I hesitated, I realized I have plum forgotten how to do it! I managed to get to the point where I had a loaf in the oven, but I felt a real lack of confidence as I was making it.

All of the nuance and learnings that I have made surrounding my oven, my baking equipment, the techniques used to shape and work the dough, they just haven’t come back to me. I am sure in the fullness of time much of it, if not all of it, will return but the fact that I have gone to enjoy one of my hobbies and it just hasn’t gone to plan, not because something has failed but because I can’t recall the information.

The easiest lie you can tell yourself is “I’ll remember that”

This shouldn’t be news to me. There have been plenty of times, especially during my academic career, where I have trusted my memory and it has failed me. One of the worst things that you can say to yourself is “oh yeah I’ll remember that for later, I don’t need to write it down. “. It is such an easy lie to believe.

This has raised two problems for me however. The first is that I am not able to enjoy all of my hobbies on a regular basis. Some of them require good weather (such as working in my garden) or materials that are difficult to come by (model kits) so it could be a while between sessions on certain hobbies. The second problem is that when I do go to enjoy that hobby after a prolonged period I need to be able to recall this information.

Documentation isn’t sexy

I am trying to get better at writing this stuff down. I have a box of index cards above my cooker that have all my personalised recipes in them. I will frequently carry with me a notebook and pen to capture ideas or work though plans. While this has helped in some hobbies it has been a bit hit-and-miss in others. Wood working and model making are two that have suffered from a lack of documentation because so much of it is down more to muscle memory than anything else.

I want to document my building projects along with a “post-mortem” of some kind so I can hopefully commit these items to memory a lot better. At the very least I will have something to come back to in order to remind me what I have learned.

So that is where this blog has come from my inability to store all this information in my brain. I hope that by me writing down what I have learned and experienced in my various hobbies that you are able to pick up from my learnings and apply them to your own experiences. If nothing else I hope you can learn from my mistakes!