Hobbits, hobbies, and hard cider.

I love people who always have a different hobby, hobbyists, I think they are called. My Dad and Sean are like this, always dabbling in new crafts and trades. It took me a while to appreciate a person who could jump from interest-to-interest. I tend to do only a few things, and don't really branch out unless i've mastered what i'm currently doing. I think the only true hobbies i've had, in all of my life, are reading/writing, chess, puzzles, and needlework. But the thing about people like Sean and my Dad, is that they know a little about everything and are fascinating.

After meditating on this, I sat down and thought of something I want to learn about and know I would enjoy. The idea came pretty quickly to me. One of my greatest pleasures in life is a nice, crisp, hard cider and I really love the idea of transforming something raw into a creation entirely different.

So i'm putting in an order for a grinder and cider press and am looking for some old literature on the fermentation process. I really want to avoid those DIY kits, but we'll see how hard it is to find champagne yeast, etc. I'll be happy as long as i'm using real apples and it turns out alcoholic and bubbly.

So how do Hobbits fit into all of this? Well, Sean has a friend, his best friend since he was a baby, Scott. Every week Sean and Scott sit on a patio or by a fire, drinking whiskey, smoking their pipes, discussing classical music, poetry, culture, wars, wood working, dark beer, and any other old-mannish subject you can imagine. You've never met 2 people so similar, except for this one bizarre variance....Sean has NEVER read any Tolkien. He always claims that being in the play The Hobbit ,as a young kid ,scarred him (he was Nori and Scott was Dori). While Sean has never touched a Tolkien book, Scott has just returned from studying Ancient and Medieval Literature at Oxford. He was even in a class of 30 people with the last professor to have been a colleague of Tolkien. As you can imagine, Scott (and myself) are always harping on Sean to AT LEAST read The Hobbit.

Yesterday, Sean and Scott went to the Antiquarian Book Fair, and I don't know how Scott did it, but Sean came home and asked if I would like to start reading The Hobbit out loud at night!

It was so perfect, I already had a leg of lamb roasting in the oven and a bottle of red wine breathing. We lit candles and ..."In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit."

I'm sure many people could think of particular moments in life that were made good or magical by reading Tolkien. One of my favorites is of being in Edinburgh for 3 weeks, where I would venture nearly every night to The Elephant House, Tolkien biography in hand , and would sit down to a hard cider and piece of chocolate cake.

Last night was another.

Tolkien and Hard Cider. Hobbits and Hobbies. Good things to live for.