Madeleine Chapman reflects on the week that was.

A year ago I met a lovely older gentleman at a Christmas party who owned racehorses. He wasn’t “in the business”, as he said, he just enjoyed horses and so owned a couple as a hobby. After a dozen questions from me about the cost of horses, trainers, feed, land hire and more, I shook my head. “That’s a really expensive hobby,” I laughed.

“Well, you’ve got to have hobbies,” he said. “What are yours?”

I stopped laughing because I didn’t have any. Every day, I went to work and then returned home to watch something on TV while also scrolling mindlessly through my phone. I couldn’t even say reading was a hobby because I hadn’t done any sustained reading for pleasure in months. When I, embarrassed, answered that I didn’t have any hobbies and I was only just now realising it, the lovely man turned pragmatic. “Better late than never.”

A year later, on Wednesday this week, I stood in a dusty workshop looking at a pile of wood and wondering what to do next. I had already spent a good 40 hours on the pile of wood and had at least another 10 to go before it would hopefully resemble the shoe cabinet I had in my head. I had finally found my hobby.

It should’ve been an easy one to figure out. I grew up in a DIY household where every weekend and summer was spent holding planks of wood as they passed through a table saw or thicknesser, measuring up all the exact positions of studs and electrical outlets so we could cut GIB to line walls, then sanding the plaster before painting. Plus, I love putting together flatpack furniture.

I’ve since realised my impatience is the main thing holding me back from enjoying woodwork as a hobby. Once I start something, I like to finish it as soon as possible. Couple that with weeks of watching master furniture builders on TikTok create stunning pieces in precisely 60 seconds, and my perception of what woodworking entailed and encouraged was cooked.

My first few projects were monstrosities. Terrifying pieces of art illustrate cutting corners and rushed execution. Despite that, and despite my history of giving up on crafts after one failed project, I found myself enjoying the forced concentration and stillness in woodworking. There was so little instant gratification that it forced my brain to appreciate a slow burn again.

So now, the shoe cabinet. I was learning to appreciate a slow burn but still naively believed I could finish it in a week. Instead, after a whole week, I had only just made it to the step “having the right wood pieces”. Virtually every step of the build has required a pause to research, plan and learn a new skill or tool. Using hardwood rather than plywood has been a journey in patience waiting for glue to dry and sanding everything for hours. And the constant making of mistakes has meant painfully learning when the solution is to go home and sleep on it.

Sometimes, I would show up at the workshop with an ambitious to-do list and leave hours later having made a dozen measurements and zero cuts. I felt like I’d wasted a whole afternoon the first time it happened. By the third time, I was just glad to have not made an irreversible mistake.

The internet has made our lives and brains crowded and non-stop. Everything begins and ends a few minutes before it’s on to the next subject. I know a tiny bit about so many things. But 2025 is the year for slowing down and going outside. Or, as one Tiktok trend predictor described it, “the reverse brain rot”. I still love to watch a 30-second video of someone gluing up a cool wood joint, but now it is simply a helpful reference to add to my slower hobby, not the hobby itself.

On Wednesday, after pondering for a few minutes and deciding I needed to cut my shelves shorter, a man entered the workshop and asked if I needed help. I said I was trying to build a cabinet but had gotten stuck because it wasn’t square. His eyes lit up. “I’m a cabinet maker!” he said. We solved the problem together in five minutes. It turns out I’d had it pretty much perfect the first time, and if I had cut the shelves as planned, I’d have ruined the whole thing.

I never thought I would have the patience to get into woodwork. And I still don’t. But it has been forcing me to try. If I can stay patient enough not to destroy this cabinet over the next two weeks, having first thought about making it four months ago, it’ll be my greatest mental achievement in years.c