We are suddenly restricted from going out on our daily business, work and our studies and events that used to take up our weekends are no longer taking place.
What are we to do with all the free time on our hands? We could watch Netflix, play video games, spend an exorbitant amount of time on social media or do something new, interesting and exciting, and engage with those around us.
Let’s find some genuine fun and new ways to distract ourselves from thinking about the current state of the world. If you’ve only got a little bit of time, there are plenty of easy and fun skills to learn in your free time. The following skills might take a little longer to master but what better way to spend your time inside.
- Tie knots: tying knots is easy to learn for anyone over 7 years old, so if you’re isolating with siblings have a little competition who can tie a bowline knot the fastest. Or who can master a certain number of knots in a given time. Some knots to learn are half hitch, bowline, reef knot, clove hitch, and sheetbend.
- Dancing: an excellent way to keep your physical activity up in an entertaining way. This is a great activity if you’re isolated with your partner or housemates. Swing dancing, hip hop moves, salsa and ballroom steps; foot tapping to last the night through.
- Poetry: take your acting skills and love of the theatre to the next level with some Dickens or Shakespearean literature. Turn into your very own talent show with members of your family or housemates being the judges and points awarded based on performance. Tally the points and the winning performer gets a prize.
- Parlour games: an old phrase for card games and board games played in the parlour after supper. A deck of cards can be used for almost 80 different games so get creative, start a scoreboard and a tally system. The possibilities are endless but here are a few of my personal favourites: rummy, black queen, crazy 8, go fish (of course), speed, 500, cheat. Of course if you have board games, make good use of them! Start a round robin competition if you alter the rules of each game.
Keep safe and have fun!
