Skills I have learned...useful and not-so!

Prinzessilein

I was thinking recently about various skills I have learned over the years (well...decades to be accurate!)...and whilst there are probably no 'useless' skills, there are definitely those skills I have used more than others.

I thought it might be fun to list those skills I found useful over the years - and would have taught children if I had been blessed with any!.....and also those that I don't think I ever made any real use of.....oh and those skills I wish I had mastered but haven't (yet!)

Useful Skills:

Cooking - especially bread making (positively therapeutic at times!)..surely this need to be taught more today!

Knitting - (taught myself much later in life - wish I'd grasped it earlier...even as a beginner I was making 'real' items!)

Reading Music - (Mum insisted I learned to read 'real' music when I started to play the recorder...maybe not 'practical' in every day terms but so glad I learned!)

Maths - (Don't know if this s a 'skill' as such...certainly a gift for me!....but so many people seem unable to work out price reductions/best buys et.c...still remember a shop assistant who needed a calculator to work out what four items at 25p each came to!!!)

Mending - obvious maybe but seems to be a dying art! (Favourite story has to be the mum who was seriously buying new trainers for her lad when the laces broke!!!!)...include such things as wiring a plug, and changing a washer.

Less-than-useful Skills...

Dolly-Bobbin Wool 'Crochet' - making our own 'dolly' for the work was the best bit! (We learned to make long strings of wool...supposedly to make mats or bags, but I never saw anyone do anything with their woollen strings!)...similarly I could include raffia work here...did anyone EVER make a full set of raffia mats????...oh and weaving newspaper strips (made a mat to sit on and that was it!



And possibly half the 'emergency and first aid' skills I learned at Guides....to be fair it is not that these skills were useless...just that I never got to use them and feel gutted!...I can make a stretcher using a long coat and two tree branches/broom handles (which OF COURSE will just be lying around when I need them!)...I can save someone who is on fire by rolling them in a handy rug to put out the flames...I know how to escape from a second floor window by knotting sheets together and tying one end to the bed post!...oh and if kidnapped, I can write a secret letter for help by using a fountainpen, some note paper and either a lemon or an onion!

Skills I wish I had learned....


Dress-making....There were lessons at one school, but pretty useless teacher...I wish I had learned this - it would be so great to be able to make clothes.

Swimming...and Riding a Bike....Severe dyspraxia means I was excused all sports/games at school...but I do wish I had been able to learn these!

Ballet....Simply because I am a frustrated ballerina!....as I have stated, I have severe dyspraxia...and have had serious weight issues(9 stone-ish lost and a few more to go)....so I would probably be reminiscent of those hippos from Fantasia...but I dream of being graceful and floaty!

Katieowl

Cooking has to be top of the learned skills doesn't it?

The more you can make for yourself the less reliant you need to be on other people, and of course it saves huge amounts of money.

I've always liked to try new foodie skills, so I've made tofu (very similar to cheese process) Bread, Jam, Pickles, smoked fish, made pastrami etc. The occassional disaster inevitable, had to bury a batch of chorizo deep in the garden at the dead of night :rotfl: clearly a drafty hallway in England doesn't have the same drying qualities as a warm Spanish breeze! Never tried cheese as I haven't managed to get my hands on some raw milk, but I do have a cooking "to do" list of things I want to try.

Things I can do:

Cook...
Sew including dressmaking, curtains, mending etc,
Keep animals alive and thrving dogs and chickens,
Knit - favourite item socks
Drive (possibly THE most useful thing)
Budget, bargain hunt etc
Forage
Limited mending: can change a plug and unblock things
Reading Maps - who needs satnav!

Less than useful skills

Ability to organise things, which gets me rope into helping people :rotfl:


Things I can't do (some of which I wish I could )

Can't ride a bike (possibly also dyspraxic?)
Dance - well I can jig about, but can't follow a dance routine to save my life I have tried
Can't play an instrument
Complicated maths entirely evades me - but eveb I can work out 25p X 4 without a calculator
Surf - I am in awe - I can swim but not very well
Crochet - just can't have tried
Speak a foriegn language - Welsh would be so useful!

[Deleted User]

I can cook
knit
drive
swim
mend things (plugs etc )
Budget
forage
read a map
ride a horse (well enough not to fall off at least )
Volunteer (which I do far too much according to my children )
natter (again ditto above )
ride a bike
roller skate (although I don't think I would like to now at my age )
Ice skate (again ditto above )
sew a button on



I can't and not for the want of trying

crochet
use a sewing machine
draw a straight line or paint a picture
play an instrument
surf,(not many breakers around the Medway
speak a foreign language
algebra is a foreign language to me as well :)along with complicated maths
Garden anymore (aged joints and bending in the middle )

But I can live with what I can do, and survive with what I can't (I have a great chap who does my gardening for me)

JackieO xx

Prinzessilein

I hadn't thought about driving...not a skill I have ..it would be useful, but I have a bus-pass on the grounds that I would never be allowed to drive.

And speaking German comes pretty easily to me, so I never thought to add languages to my list (English and German are fluent...I get by in a couple more languages and have a smatter of others)

JackieO...I would love to have you over for a cuppa....and a maths lesson!!! I am convinced that you can already do algebra- you just don't realise it!...numbers make more sense to me than people do! (Maybe die to my Autism!)

peachyprice

Prinzessilein wrote: »

Swimming...and Riding a Bike....Severe dyspraxia means I was excused all sports/games at school...but I do wish I had been able to learn these!

My son is dyspraxic, swimming was actually something he could do and did enjoy. Nobody else can see what's going on under the water, as long as you believe you can float (you can, we all can) and can kick your legs and arms enough to get you along you will be able to swim, it might not be pretty and it might not be fast, but it will still be swimming. It's a shame you weren't encouraged more at school.

Riding a bike is a completely different matter! My son got the hang of pedalling and he got the hang of steering, he just never got the hang of doing both! He's 22 now and has conceded that it's best not to drive.

Ballet....Simply because I am a frustrated ballerina!....as I have stated, I have severe dyspraxia...and have had serious weight issues(9 stone-ish lost and a few more to go)....so I would probably be reminiscent of those hippos from Fantasia...but I dream of being graceful and floaty!

Have you looked for local ballet schools that offer adult classes?
The have them where my daughter dances and the women who go are of all sizes, shapes and agility. If you can find a friendly class I'm sure you won't feel out of place.

It's never too late to learn!

trailingspouse

I can squawk like a parrot. This is more useful than you might at first imagine...

bouicca21

I learned to swim a few years ago, after 60 years as a non swimmer. So you can fix that one.

Can't knit but can crochet - which is a totally useless skill.

I went to ballet lessons as a child. Let us just say that my talents were limited. When it came to the end of year performance I was the one asked to sell programmes.

Linda32

I have taught myself (enough to get by) gardening. Both flowers and vegetable growing. I live and breath it actually.

I get by enough to batch cook but not really interested in cooking. If I could work out how to plug myself in to recharge then that would do.

My Mum taught me how to write a letter and lay it out.

I can drive a car.


I can't knit, well I can do a stitch but I drop them and increase without even trying.

I can't swim and am not really fussed about trying to learn.

I can't really make decent sponge or pastry.

Prinzessilein

Peachyprice...I had very few swimming lessons at school (excused all sports and games due to severity of dyspraxia)...when I DID get into the water I couldn't even float with armbands and a float to hold!...I am a scientist, I understand that humans are supposed to float, but I am the one exception to that law! ..also, I do have ne other disadvantage, I am all but blind without my glasses, and so I thrash around in the water with absolutely no regard fo all the other swimmers that I cannot see...or hear!

The adult ballet would be lovely...and I do know of a class near here...but sadly my dyspraxia is so severe that I cannot walk without my walker to hold for balance...when I had my PiP assessment, the ATOS assessor actually stopped the physical tests when she asked me stand and go onto on tippy-toes and I started swaying on the 'stand' part!

One skill that I missed from my initial list...I can do 'proper' italic handwriting....when I was at junior school, we were not allowed to use a biro - we had to use pencil first, followed by learning to write with a 'square-nibbed' italic pen (using ink from inkwells, no handy cartridges!)....we used paper with five lines (like music stave paper) to teach us to get letters the correct height...I think that today, legible handwriting is becoming a rare skill!

blackcatsx2

I was taught typing on a typewriter so I know how to centre the heading of a document by counting the number of letters in the heading, divide by 2 and then backspace from the middle of the page - anyone else remember doing that ? I’m sure that skill will never be needed again.

Hard_Up_Hester

Some of these things I used to be able to do but can no longer see well enough to manage.

Knit on up to 5 double ended needles.
Crochet.
Embroider including Dorset feather stitch, cross stitch and chicken scratch.
Cook.
Bake.
Stretch food to feed unexpected guests.
Make pastry including flakey.
Solder.
Make cables, RJ45, telephone cables etc.
Work an assortment of switch boards even the old dolls eye ones.
Work 3 large photocopiers simultaneously, whistling the theme tune to The A Team helps.
Drive, though only an automatic car.
Run a small business.
Use Sage accounting package.
Do a VAT return.
Swim, badly.
Sew.
Mend.
Dress make.
Darn.
Make children's clothes from adults.
Quilt.
Garden.
Forage.
Make jams chutney and sloe gin.
Light a bonfire, hearth fire and log burner.
I have a helmsmans licence that enables me to pilot a boat up to 70ft in length and 10 ft wide in the UK and abroad.
I can operate most locks and swing bridges.
I can also match colours, so I can go shopping and buy something to match an item that I have seen. I don't need it with me.
I used to be able to sing soprano, in tune.
I can give an animal an injection.
I can write stories.
I blog.
I can walk my boat along the canal if the engine fails.
I can recognise poisonous plants.
I can dowse.
I can read tarot cards.

I cannot ride a bike.
I cannot play an instrument.
I cannot dance.
I cannot hear Danny Boy without crying.