What talent or skill would you most like to have

glammanana Almost every time I touch them. I was also nearly electrocuted by a power tool that I wasn't strong enough to control, so the cord wrapped itself around the spindle, shorted and threw me across the room. It's just my arms that are pathetic – the rest of me is quite muscly.

I would love to be good at speaking foreign languages...ice skating...playing the cello...break-dancing [as this would impress my 22 year old grandson no end!]

I would like to be good at plumbing, I would earn Brownie points with DH and save time and money on waiting for a real one to find a window in his diary.

My mother in law was brilliant at everything she did (or so she told me) Two of my daughters have inherited her eye for colour, her sewing capabilites and her instinctive cooking skills but I would love to be able to do just one thing arty or crafty without making a real mess of it!

I, too, would love to be able to sing but was told so often by my mother not to, that I wouldn't dare!

I'd love to be able to 'make things' which didn't look as if I had tried to make them;
I'd love to be able to paint and draw, without my efforts looking like a 4 year old had been doing them;
I'd love to be able to sew on a button which didn't fall off 2 minutes after I'd finished;
I'd love to be able to paint a window frame or a door without ending up with most of the paint where it shouldn't really be (mostly trickling down my elbows or on the glass);
I'd love to be able to sort out domestic problems, not the OG sort, but the plumbing/electrical sort, without having to resort to phoning a 'little man';
I'd love to be able to perfect my spoken French and to improve on my Spanish (which I've almost totally forgotten);
I'd love to be endowed with self-control - especially where chocolate and red wine are involved;
I'd love to be Arty like Daughter No.3 and to go through life laughing;
I'd love to be able to actually finish something I've started

.........but I suppose we can't all be perfect

I know it's a cliche - but if I had a £1 for everyone who told me that they cannot sing and then turned out to be just fine at it when given the right chances and encouragement I would be a rich lady!
I could happily shoot teachers who tell children that they cannot sing - if they cannot sing it is because the teacher is doing it all wrong!! It is sad to see these doors closed on people so young and so erroneously.

Like so many on this thread, I would love to be able to sing (yes, I too was told at a young age to stand at the back and mouth the words). I did however sing to all my children and they all sing just fine, so perhaps I'm not as bad as I have always thought. I would never have the confidence to join a choir though.

I would also like to be able to draw, paint, play a musical instrument, write fiction, do DIY ...

Saville Row quality tailoring...

Absent and Lucid I feel about drawing the same way others feel about singing. Anyone can do it, all it takes it practice. I am of the school that says if you can write you can draw. It is the same process of using a line to communicate an idea. The problem is the expectation (often engenered in schools) that one should produce detailed, complicated representations of something that is in front of you, instead of simply recording what is important for you. I did a bit of drawing whilst I was in India and Nepal recently and not only enjoyed the process, they are giving me great pleasure now, but I'd never show them to anyone else.
Sorry, this is a bit of a hobby horse of mine.

I passed 'O' level art (65% , which was how we were marked in 1956), but I have no idea why. I took figure drawing, using charcoal, free design, and textile design but in my own opinion I was hopeless. I have one daughter who is not at all academic but she paints wonderful landscapes in oil and can also make covers for settees and arm chairs without a pattern. I can just about follow a pattern but now find it is uneconomic to either knit or sew because there are so many cheap clothes shops.
My mother was a seamstress, and she would run me up a new science overall, with lapels and a pocket, before I went to school. For some reason, I was always losing them. It looks as though her talent skipped a generation.

My other daughter finds her creativity in her gardening and now she has the land (in New Zealand) to really let her imagination run riot. I have brown fingers - every plant I have ever owned has withered and died. However, I love enjoying the fruits of her labours. She is also very skilled at interior decorating, whereas I am always in a rush and never do the proper preparation.

My lack of musical ability also affects my competence in foreign languages. I have to speak French because nobody in my village speaks English (or at least they won't admit to it!) but after ten years in France, plus years working in Monaco and Brussels, I still speak French with a Salford accent. I can read and write French without difficulty, but everyone told me that if you immersed yourself totally in French life, you would learn to speak the language fluently, almost by osmosis. Fortunately, I have met with nothing but kindness from my neighbours and they won't correct me even when I ask them to.

I am holding you all responsible for an embarrassing incident this morning! You were very positive about the joys of singing, so as I was walking along a very remote path here in the Alps, I burst into 'The Happy Wanderer' and I had just got to the 'Val-de-ree' bit, quite loudly, when I rounded a bend and confronted some very startled Swiss walkers.
I also swing along with my Nordic poles to 'Men of Harlech', 'The British Grenadiers' and 'It's a long way to Tipperary' - there really is a good reason for armies to have marching music.

Could have been worse. I was walking in the middle of nowhere with no one for miles, went behind a hedge at the top of a mountain [or a very large hill; it was a long time ago] for a 'comfort break' and a troup of scouts appeared over the horizon .

That has happened to me too, Crimson, but I am getting very adept at spotting good places! Pine forests are useless - not enough undergrowth.

Also an area of stinging nettles, or brambles, they are terrible, when you get your knickers snagged by them.
Violin, I would love to play that, I can tinkle the ivories a little, but well out of practice.
My eldest son taught me how to use a chain saw, and very useful I hope it will be eventually.

Hattie . And be cautious among bracken. It harbours ticks as I know only too well...

Would love to be able to play a guitar and ride a horse; possibly even at the same time [think Roy Rogers and Trigger . Greatnan; my ex went to Salford University [his dept was in the old Brylcreem factory. We lived out at Eccles and then Monton [where the canal is orange]. Before we moved away I took lots of photos of the old back to back houses, which, unfortunately didn't turn out. Fond memories of talent shows in local pubs with people playing spoons and such like.

I went to Adelphi House, Crimson - long before the University was built on the other side of the river. There was just Salford Tech, where girls taking biology had to go for their 'A' level study - the nuns wouldn't have it in the school because it meant..........sex!
When I was a child, Eccles was quite posh, but I am afraid time has not been kind to it. Monton is still quite upmarket - I took my sister to an Italian restaurant last year, and it cost me an arm and a leg. (She lives in Swinton).

Both my daughters had horses when we lived in Willaston, in the Wirral. I did ride a little, but never got up the courage to do more than a trot - it is a long way down from a 15.5 hands horse! It amused me to see them all togged up in their riding gear and I thought about my own impoverished childhood in the back streets of Salford.

I would love to be able to dance! At school I was made to sit out Country Dancing lessons as I just couldn't get the steps right. I am almost totally ambidextrous - can do most things with both hands, write, eat, text etc. I think this may have something to do with my lack of co-ordination skills as I don't have a "leading" side. I am very musical so it is not a rhythm problem. Say to me "left foot forward" and by the time I have decided which is the left foot, everyone has moved on apace. Groan . . .

I just wish I could translate what's in my mind into reality. I make mosaics, wonderfully accomplished creations ... in my mind's eye. In practice the pieces don't quite fit together, I worry endlessly about whether I'm using the right colours, and my grouting lines are way too big. And how to do the background?! All sorts of possibilities.
So, whilst I quiver with anxiety inside, I just get on with it and see how it turns out. They're my babies and I love 'em all.

I have little or no artistic skill - in anything.
I have learned how to be an appreciative audience for my multi-talented family and friends though.
My husband is on his way home from an award's ceremony in London - where he (and his team) won a First Prize - and I am so pleased for him because, in addition to him having natural talent in his field, he works very hard.

I have a sister and a daughter who are both unable to tell left from right, but oddly enough they are both good artists.

I'd like to be able to sail a yacht, but think I might have left it a bit late to learn - when you retire and have the time to do things you quite often don't have the stamina. I'd like to be a better pianist (working on it) and catch a trout with a fly rod (working on that too - DH bought me a day's tuition on a local river; I'll probably end up in the river with the fish!) And I would like to be able to build a brick wall!

Oh yes, and would LOVE to be able to JIVE!! I could never get the hang of it...

Oh, I know what you mean, Artygran. Jiving was an utter nightmare back then when I was a young 'un. When they spun me round I would completely lose it, and was terrified I'd grab the wrong man - or the wrong bit of the right man - terrifying!!

I was 16 when Bill Haley came to Britain and I went to see 'Rock around the Clock' I loved rock and roll - I started work at the CWS in Manchester and we spent our lunch hour jiving at the Plaza - it was 3d. for the session.
I had ballroom dancing lessons for five shillings an hour, above Burtons' shop - I could follow any good partner but unfortunately my husband had two left feet.
I miss dancing but I can always have a bop to my old 1950's tapes!