Edel Coffey: Our hobbies reveal a lot about ourselves 

I thought about all those times I had been invited to play golf and baulked — I could read a book in the time it would take to get around 18 holes; or have the whole house cleaned from top to bottom

“What are your hobbies?” The question took me by surprise. Hobbies? Do people still have hobbies, I thought? 

I was at a party where I didn’t know many people and was engaging in the exhausting post-pandemic experience of making small talk when the question came at me out of left field. I fumbled around for an answer. Reading? Writing? But these things are my job. Would be a bit sad to say the thing you did for a living was also your hobby? My brain obligingly offered an alternative answer. What about the gym? No that wouldn’t do. I haven’t been to the gym since December 2021 and anyway, hobbies are supposed to be something you enjoy doing.