The Simple Thingsの October 2023 の目次

‘You scratch my back, and I'll scratch yours’, the old adage goes. In other words, I'll help you, if you help me – which sums up skill sharing nicely. Like most, I've done some ad hoc versions of it in the past, without necessarily noticing. Mine have usually revolved around writing – for example, I helped a friend with the wording on her yoga website, and in return she gave me a one-to-one session. Recently, thanks to technological advancements, there's been a rise in skill sharing platforms and apps that allow one hour of your time to equal an hour of someone else's. And possibly even better than the ‘analogue’ version of skill sharing, you get hour ‘credits’ so you don't have to trade your hour with the same person,…

SHARING Just like Anne in L.M Montgomery's Anne Of Green Gables, I am glad I live in a world where there are Octobers. It's a dreamy month of woodsmoke, golden light, burnished trees and clove-scented apple crumble. The sea holds on to the last of the summer warmth, so I swim as often as I can. It feels like we are suspended in amber for a few precious weeks before the slippery descent to Christmas begins. I just wish this month was twice as long. Maybe we could do a deal with February? October is prime foraging season, too. Blackberries are in their final juicy flourish, and there are sloes, elderberries, rosehips, mushrooms, hawthorn berries and chestnuts. I take a bowl on every dog walk until I have enough wild…

Andria Zafirakou has only one regret. It's not that the celebrated art and textiles teacher turned down a prestigious job offer to work with the Government. Or that she spent a life-changing amount of prize money on setting up a charity and not a bean of it on herself. Or even that she left her much-loved job to start a more challenging role elsewhere… It's pushing over Timothy Cole in the playground of her northwest London primary in the mid-Eighties. “He wouldn't play with me,” Andria says, sheepishly. If you're out there, Timothy, she says, “Sorry.” It's not only that she regrets hurting him, however, but that she got into trouble for it. “That was devastating, I loved school.” Always passionate about education, aged five Andria would read to her…

OUTING I have no idea what time it was when my young son started trying to pull my eyelids open. We were camping in Dorset and he was, somewhat violently, reeling me up to the surface so I could see what he'd seen. “Come and look,” he said, repeatedly. “Open your eyes.” He'd been determined to stay awake to see the night sky, understanding that in rural places it's possible to see the night as it truly is – something we just can't do in the city. We stood there, hand-in-hand, in a field next to the sea, tilting our heads skywards. In doing so, I realised that, rather than using my eyes to receive information, which is arguably all we're doing when reading our phones, I actually looked. And…

REFLECTION The evenings draw in almost imperceptibly at first, but as the days get shorter, there's an atmospheric change. After the somnolence of summer, autumn brings a restless, back-to-school energy; birds murmurate and migrate, stags rut and wildlife gathers stores for winter. As the days get shorter and early mornings shimmer with the first frosts, a seasonal transition is triggered; our woolly jumpers are retrieved from their temporary retirement. It is the colour-changing canopy that tips us off to autumn's arrival; in the fading of light and lushness, the wild world paints itself with a new palette. Like the stars, leaves get brighter before they die. After gorging on sunlight throughout the summer, colder temperatures cause chlorophyll to retreat, ushering in a brief golden age when carotenoid pigments show off…

For squirrelling away DOWN TO A TEA TOWEL Why let the little matter of the drying up stop play thanks to this linen tea towel-cum-chess board? Printed and embroidered, this design is definitely a checkmate. £30, amuselabouche.com BRICK IN THE WALL How many five-letter words can you find reading down the face of our wall? The letters of each word can only read downwards on touching bricks, taking one only from each line (answers on page 124) “Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience” Ralph Waldo Emerson The National Trust’s logo since 1936, this design by wood and stone carver Joseph Armitage was selected via a competition. The stipulation was to use either a lion, a rose or – like the winner – an oak: all felt to…

DID YOU KNOW 12 March 1951 saw the birth of Dennis the Menace, twice. As well as the Beano’s it was also the launch of anoher US menace, also called Dennis! NICE FIND A mystery when $1,200 was found inside a New York library book Thrice The Brinded Cat Hath Mew'd. Librarians turned sleuths to return it to a very grateful owner – not a whodunnit but a 'senior moment'. Try sketching (or making a list of) some things that help you get a better night's rest. Taken from Drawing on Anxiety: Finding Calm Through Creativity, written & illustrated by Kate Sutton (Leaping Hare Press)…

GATHERING Woggles at the ready? Gather your makeshift troop for an adventure in the woods. Take inspiration from the Scouts, Guides and Woodcraft Folk to enjoy a trip to your nearest woodland – making simple food to share on tree stumps, playing games among the branches and rounding off with a bit of foraging before heading home (no need for camping on this mini adventure). Make the Scouts proud and be prepared with a rucksack packed with hot dogs (which can be heated up with a simple tin can stove), rolls, homemade sauerkraut and potato salad. Add brownies for sustenance and you're good to go. Once the contents have been emptied, you can use it to carry foraged finds for gin and pickles to make back at home for the…

BOBBING APPLES CAKE Serves 10-12 150g butter, softened, plus extra for greasing 3-4 large dessert apples 1 lemon, finely grated zest and 2 tbsp juice 150g golden caster sugar, plus 4 tsp 1 egg 1 tsp vanilla extract 300ml soured cream 225g plain flour 2 tsp baking powder 150ml double cream 2 tbsp Calvados 1 Preheat the oven to 180C/Fan 160C/ Gas 4. Butter a 23cm springform cake tin. 2 Use a melon baller to make rounds of apple (keep the skin on). Aim for 36 balls. 3 Mix the lemon juice with 3 tsp of caster sugar; stir through the apple balls. Set aside. 4 Cream together the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Beat in the egg, then the vanilla extract and 200ml soured cream. 5 Fold…

FAVOURITE CAFÉ Clerks Coffee This bright and airy extension of the Emeline Hotel serves a wonderful selection of teas as well as a seasonal menu that always includes some warm spiced goodies in the autumn. 181 Church Street, Charleston hotelemeline.com/clerks-coffee-company FAVOURITE SHOP Peyton William Beautiful locally made jewellery influenced by the coast around Charleston. 200 King Street, Charleston peytonwilliam.com FAVOURITE RESTAURANTS The Watch On the roof of The Restoration hotel, this has everything from full meals to southern snacks. 75 Wentworth Street, Charleston thewatchcharleston.com Sorghum and Salt Local food straight from the farm or sea. 186 Coming Street, Charleston sorghumandsalt.com BEST PLACE TO STAY The Loutrel Right in the centre of town, just a two minute walk from Charleston's historic market. The service and rooms are spectacular and the beautiful…

Seeking out new beginnings takes courage. It's easy not to feel challenged in any way and to carry on down the same path. Trying things out is brave. This is something I've come to realise over the past year as I've started a different job in a new school. Personal success is the most important outcome of education. That a young person can grow, that they can manage their emotions, that they are as resilient as possible and that they are kind people who give back to society. Don't be nervous of technology. Children will always be better at it than us – it's their language – but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try and learn it. This will also allow us to help protect them and ensure that they…

PASSIONS IN A WORLD THAT CAN FEEL INCREASINGLY UNIFORM, WE'RE CELEBRATING THOSE HAPPILY DOING THINGS a bit differently. Meet the PEOPLE WHO ARE seriously PASSIONATE about their pastimes. PERHAPS THEY'LL PERSUADE YOU TO TRY something NEW? The difference between skateboarding and longboarding? Well, the former demands the skater send their board spinning crazily in the air and crashing to the ground, before they walk with nonchalant gait to retrieve it. The latter, on the other hand, involves the rider resolving to actually stay on the board. That is a gross caricature, of course, albeit one with an underlying truth: skateboards are nimble things, ideally suited to performing tricks and stunts, while longboards’ greater stability and traction affords riders the chance to try everything from pulling off dance moves to zooming down…

“My front door is always decorated for the season. Autumn is my favourite and I do tend to get carried away in the pumpkin patch! This door, with its gorgeous original Cotswold stone porch, was the starting point of my wreath business. I made a foraged wreath during lockdown and hung it to spread some cheer to passers-by on their daily walk. It got so many comments that I decided to start a wreath-making business. Now I make wreaths for all seasons, so my door will never be naked again.” Belinda Sadek, near Bath, Somerset @brambleandvelvet “As odd as it sounds I feel like this is a happy door. I searched for one with stained glass for ages and when I found this one, I couldn't get it out of…

Cow parsley A mighty seed-producer: up to 10,000 per plant. Rather than cows, the seeds are most commonly moo-ved by tractors, cars and lorries. Teasel Deserves to hold its head up high. Once used in the textile industry, it feeds birds*, and keeps insects fed and watered over winter. Alliums The plant family that gives us onions and garlic and more, but also flower heads with sculptural beauty over the winter months. Thanks shallot. Honesty To be honest, these silvery, paper-y pods are easily spottable. Other names include money plant and moneywort, they're a pretty penny. Poppy The dispersal is less ‘pop’, more pepper pot, as the head acts like a shaker: though that doesn't account for seeds ending up between your teeth… Rosehips Drawn to the colourful hips, it's…

Bean puttanesca Autumn days call for good, hearty stews, even better when they don't need hours of stove time. Bean puttanesca Serves 2 2-3 tbsp olive oil, plus extra to serve 6 anchovy fillets 1 large red onion, finely sliced 2 garlic cloves, finely sliced 50g capers 1 red chilli, deseeded, or 1 tsp dried chilli flakes 70g pitted Kalamata olives, half left whole, the rest chopped in half 400g can of chopped tomatoes ½ tsp caster sugar or honey 700g jar queen butter beans Large bunch of flat-leaf parsley, chopped 1 Heat 2 tbsp of the olive oil in a frying pan over a medium–high heat. Add the anchovy fillets, whole, and let them cook off and reduce for about 2 mins. Once they have cooked down and shrunk…

Five Fifty-Five Last of the sun, flintlight on a bright field before evening before but not yet, not yet. Here where houses spill kitchenlight across a cloud of leaves, gusting into the violet hour not yet, not yet the vespery flight of sloughed off skins, for even as oak and alder hold tight to ochre and amber in not-yet-winter leaves are skipping a fairytale path to my door, a door that opens to let a slice of warmth hold back the falling darkness hold back from not yet, not-yet-winter and though summer may be over still the roses keep insisting, insisting. There's a lovely, longing sense of the outgoing and incoming seasons in Five Fifty-Five. Autumn has already arrived, the nights will soon be longer and darker as winter heads…

STYLE Can you read with cold toes? I find it impossible to concentrate when my feet are chilly. As soon as the autumn weather becomes too risky for bare legs, I'm firmly snug in a pair of tights. For a long time, they were purely practical – and that meant reliable black opaques. I'll still wear them but now my legs are treated to a rainbow of tones: indigos and violets, ruby reds and forest greens, and my choice is often determined by the weather and my mood. I'll often credit my style inspiration to pop culture but my shift to coloured tights can't be credited to a single film or television show – it was a whole moment. New York in autumn, by which I mean New York in…

WEEKEND PROJECT PROUDLY HOMEMADE SEED PACKETS Save your favourite seeds in these easy-to-make, pretty packets. You will need: A square of paper (20cm × 20cm) Seeds Pen 1 Fold your square in half to make a triangle (long edge closest to you). 2 Take the bottom right corner and fold it across to reach the centre of the opposite side (the top edge should be parallel with the bottom edge). Repeat with the left corner. 3 You should now have a pentagon shape. Take the top layer of the uppermost triangle and fold it down into the top pocket created in Step 2. 4 Ta-da! You should have an envelope that you can fill with seeds. Close it by folding the second triangle into the same pocket as above. Then…

Bookshop browse ISLES AWAY The Britannias: An Archipelago's Tale by Alice Albinia ➛ From Orkney to Anglesey, Thanet to the Shetland Isles, Alice Albinia sets off on an adventure to uncover the history, art and culture of the islands that make up Britain. Here are Neolithic sun chambers, rites and rituals of the Druids, the rampaging Romans with their villas and victories, and the fierce Vikings – but she also uncovers the hidden, almost forgotten roles that women played as the centuries unfurled. It's a rich tapestry of observation, guesswork and fact as Alice unearths goddesses, rulers and leaders, made all the more resonant as she muses on marriage, motherhood and modern communities of women, and their place in her own life. (Allen Lane) Shopkeeper of the month A good…

A PLACE TO STAY Did you watch Wild Isles, the BBC nature documentary about the UK? Our family really enjoyed it, discovering facts and stories about British wildlife, such as hares are the fastest UK mammal, and that purple emperor butterflies attack insects and birds that approach too close to their preferred tree-top perches. But the most amazing thing was that all this richness of fauna is right on our doorstep. So the chance to stay on a rewilding project and see some incredible wildlife for ourselves really appealed – that we'd be staying in a treehouse only sealed the deal for the kids. We'd spend time outdoors, stay in an unusual place, and have our own mini safari without travelling to a far-flung destination. We were simply heading as…

GET MAKING: • Caesar shift: Julius’ favourite, apparently. Write out the alphabet and then again, but ‘shifted’ along, by 1, 2, up to 25 letters. To read, you just need to know how many letters it's been shifted by. • Keyboard shift: as the above, but looking at the QWERTY layout instead. So, Q becomes ‘A’, W become ‘S’ and so on. •Leon Battista Alberti used two discs – one with the alphabet, one with a scrambled version. Wheels are set the same way to write and read. • The ‘Masonic’ cipher puts the alphabet into a grid series: each letter is represented by corresponding grid lines. Or make a grid like a map, with co-ordinates for a letter. •Try transposition (like childhood fave Pig Latin): keeping original words, but moved…

Autumn is here and the afternoon air has a soft, earthy smell. Pol watches from the doorway as Naomi runs to the house. The child waves goodbye to her mum at the same time as waving hello to her nan. It looks like she's conducting the starlings squawking from the rooftops they've lined. She wraps her arms around Pol. “You've got leaves in your hair, Nan.” “Have I?” Pol grins. “I've been busy gardening. Shall we have a snack in the kitchen or do you want to come and help me?” The child considers. “I'll come and help.” She drops her rucksack on the tiled floor and leads the way through the house and out into the garden. Pol has been moving tender-leafed aloe vera plants into the greenhouse beside…