The Simple Thingsの July 2024 の目次

Visit a beach at high and low tide to see what's left behind Have a long, cool bath on a hot day Barbecue something different, like a whole fish, or a pudding Take a photo of the moon every day for a month Listen to a podcast* while you potter in the garden Start a summer bucket list Try some of our ideas, make up a few of your own, or just read and enjoy Imagine that life really is a beach; full of fun and sunshine, a happy place of pleasure, leisure and relaxation. Yet it's also a scene of ebb and flow, where each day (twice a day, actually) is a clean slate as the tide washes away the evidence of what came before. Is there a more…

FAVOURITE SHOPS Shoreline Stoneware Pottery inspired by the shoreline, from rock pools to creel baskets and kelp forests. shoreline-stoneware.co.uk Hebridean Jewellery Traditional Celtic designs alongside modern creations. There's even an adjoining café. hebrideanjewellery.co.uk Hebridean Smokehouse Specialities are salmon and scallops, smoked over locally-cut peat. hebrideansmokehouse.com FAVOURITE RESTAURANT Langass Lodge The team at Langass fish and forage for produce from the surrounding hills, lochs, and shores and the menu changes daily to reflect the catch. langasslodge.co.uk FAVOURITE DISTILLERY North Uist Distillery Co Located at Nunton Steadings in Benbecula, the distillery produces award-winning Downpour gin. northuistdistillery.com FAVOURITE HOTEL Grianaig Guest House A warm welcome from Carla and Chef Chris awaits at this beautiful accommodation. grianaighouse.com FAVOURITE WAY TO SPEND AN HOUR By the sea! Scour the shore for beachcombing treasure, and watch…

WISDOM For some artists, inspiration comes from the likes of a carefully cultivated rare orchid. But for Angie Lewin, it's about what she spots growing around her, such as “a dandelion in the crack of a pavement. Or, in Venice, a fig growing out of a gutter.” She's on the side of the horticultural underdog – cheerleading for the overlooked in Britain's coast and countryside through her prints, paintings and designs. Take, for example, alexanders. According to the Norfolk Wildlife Trust website, they're 'very aggressive' and 'rather invasive'. To Angie, though, they're precious. A move from London to Norfolk tallied with a shift to focusing on her own art in earnest. On her daily dog walks along the clifftops, it was the alexanders and dandelions that drew her eye with…

WORD SEARCH While its inventor is debated, the word search emerged as a puzzle in the late 1960s, both in the United States, where Norman E. Gibat in Norman, Oklahoma, put them into his classified ads paper (the first theme being cities in Oklahoma) and also in Spain as a 'Sopas de letras' (soup of letters) by Pedro Ocón de Oro. As neither puzzle was patented, many imitators followed. The largest word search was created in 2015 by Ashish Dutt Sharma in India, containing 10,500 words. This one has a few less… A book for the beach Campfire Deckchair Driftwood Eye spy Ferry ride Festival wellies Ice cream Inadvisable cocktails Lido Ordnance Survey Map Outings Picnics Pier Postcard Promenades Rainy BBQs Salad days Sandy toes Shoreline Souvenir Suitcases Summer duvet…

My 1990 pop-top caravan sits on my drive and makes me happy every time I catch sight of her. She's called Kylie and I've given her interior a colourful '90s makeover. That decade saw my formative teenage years and I look back on them with great nostalgia: The Spice Girls, Take That, CK One, The Body Shop's 'Fuzzy Peach' perfume, Rimmel London's 'Heather Shimmer' lipstick… I bought Kylie with some of the inheritance after my dad died. We had many difficult, unhappy years with Dad – the caravan is symbolic to me because it represents happiness, freedom and simplicity. When choosing her fabrics I searched online for many happy hours. I wanted the upholstery to have the look and feel of bus seats and I found a website selling the…

The call of the sea came to Penny Warner and Julian Wall 25 years ago. Fed up with city life and with a new baby, the couple decided the time was right to move closer to family and spend more time by the coast. Setting their sights on the slightly sleepy seaside town of Hythe on the Kent coast, the family took baby steps, starting out with a cottage to get a taster of coastal living before packing their bags to move to the seaside for good. The couple knew what they needed from a family home, however, all their plans went out the window when Penny set foot in their house on a hill. It was a fixer-upper but it won her over in minutes. “It didn't tick any…

WISHLIST Summer is all about slowing down, laying back and letting your mind wander. So create a comfy space outdoors, ready for whenever the sun makes an appearance. Bookshop browse DIG FOR VICTORY This Allotment: Stories Of Growing, Eating And Nurturing by Sarah Rigby Across the country, alongside railway lines and the forlorn edges of towns, there are little patchwork pockets of happiness – a network of allotments cared for by the people who dig, mulch, plant and prune, tend their own joy and foster a community spirit. Sarah Rigby has gathered their stories here, unspooling tales of loss, hope and growth, where the influence of grandparents have sent tendrils into the present, inspiring new growers as they contend with thorns, stings and splinters, cut back brambles, dig the soil,…

The tide is high DOWN TO A TEA TOWEL Oldfield Design Co are inspired by outdoor adventures in Northern England (they're based in Cumbria). Dream about your next trip as you do the dishes. £12.95, oldfielddesignco.co.uk RED HERRINGS Fill in the gaps with letters to find the names of eight trees from around the world. Two of them are red herrings. All the answers have seven letters. (answers on page 124) “The voice of the sea speaks to the soul” Kate Chopin in The Awakening You may spy bees on Manchester's* 19th-century coat of arms and on plenty of the city's buildings, signifying its industrial past. After the tragic arena bombing, they were used to symbolise the city's strength and unity, too. * It's Manchester Day on 27 July. WHAT…

Turns out there are plenty of fish out of the sea, too… BOTTLE OPENER Eye-catching brass means it'll hopefully never get lost in the cutlery drawer. Best for: Someone who may, occasionally, drink like a fish. £14.50, oliverbonas.com CATCH OF THE DAY NECKLACE Gold plated, it's cast with recycled brass. Best for: Carrying a bit of the seaside all year round. £195, alighieri.com HIP FLASK Stainless steel and sized to slip in a pocket. Best for: Never being a fish out of water thanks to this portable vessel. £18.95, rexlondon.com FAB GADGET Tide clock Don't get caught out with this handsome hand-made clock that lets you set the tide time (they give you instructions). It works for most beaches on a semi-diurnal tidal cycle, like those beaches on the Atlantic coast.…

Wooden vessels were central to Caribbean life – the tradition lives on in Carriacou and Petite Martinique using local woods such as white cedar. It's a bit of ceremony, both in the harvesting of the trees – they look to the moon for when to chop – and in the blessing with rum and water once completed. Each boat gets 'godparents' of local children. That's glossing over hours of hand labour between those events, skills passed through generations.…

The British landscape abounds with wildflowers throughout the year. There isn't a month when there's not a bouquet to bring home, even in winter, when the offering is less floral and more a pirouette of twisted branches and spears of sculptural seed heads. You don't need to spend a fortune at the florists when you can forage for local blooms in a sensitive and non-intrusive way. The art of gathering a wild bouquet grounds you in nature, finely attunes you to the unfolding seasons, all while saving money. It also means you're not buying intensively grown flowers, which often come with pesticide and chemical residues. Summer, when the heat encourages a richer palette, more diversity and abundance, is the best time to make foraging flowers for the table a weekly…

“What would you normally do on a day off?” my Icelandic companion asked. I was in Reykjavik for work and had a day off before my flight home. I'd asked Gisli what I should do, the sights I should see. But his comment turned my perspective around. What if I spent my day in Reykjavik as I would at home, doing things I love and meeting people who think the same? I generally swim at the weekend. So, I took my cossie to Sundhöll – a 1930s city-centre pool, designed by Guðjón Samúelsson, the architect behind the spectacular Hallgrímskirkja that dominates the city's skyline. Doing something I know so well, but in a another country, opened my eyes to cultural differences (showering, with soap, before you put your cossie on…

A Lazy Day The trees bend down along the stream, Where anchored swings my tiny boat. The day is one to drowse and dream And list the thrush's throttling note. When music from his bosom bleeds Among the river's rustling reeds. No ripple stirs the placid pool, When my adventurous line is cast, A truce to sport, while clear and cool, The mirrored clouds slide softly past. The sky gives back a blue divine, And all the world's wide wealth is mine. A pickerel leaps, a bow of light, The minnows shine from side to side. The first faint breeze comes up the tide-I pause with half uplifted oar, While night drifts down to claim the shore. Paul Laurence Dunbar was born in Ohio to parents who'd been enslaved in…

STYLE First, full disclosure: I haven't worn a bikini since 1991. My tum has not seen the sun for some time. A cossie, however, has accompanied me on adventures round the globe, weekends away, impromptu wild swims and the odd hot tub dip. They hold some of my best travel memories; jumping into an inky sea dotted with phosphorescence in the Canaries, looking up from a pool into the spray-misted heights of a waterfall in South America. Not the same cossie, obviously, though I did wear one for so long it took a friend to point out that it was almost see-through by the end. That suit was a particular favourite; Forties-style halter neck with shorts-cut bottom. In my head I can imagine that I hang out on yachts in…

LOOKING BACK BRIT Vs US CROSSWORDS Arthur Wynne, the crossword's inventor, was British, though migrated to the States in the late 19th century. Early clues were mostly definitional. However, in 1925, The Daily Telegraph published the first 'cryptic' crossword (and then had an almost unbroken lineage of female crossword editors until 2009). Each cryptic clue has a logic that directs you to the type of wordplay required to discover its solution: such as anagrams, inversions, deletions and homophones. These are called 'British crosswords' to differentiate them from US crosswords, which can contain a mix of related definitions, word play and trivia. The history of the crossword is indebted to women – as constructors, editors, solvers and even polemicists. Mrs M.B. Wood can claim the first crossword ever published under a…

Subscribe through your podcast app so you don't miss an episode. Summer is a time of high expectations – for the weather, for holidays, for our gardens and life generally, but it's so often not all sunshine and roses. The TST team will be finding everyday holidays through simple things to do and make, places to explore on your doorstep and small ways to find calm and fun. Think high summer, slow living.…

OUTING The prom. It's a measure of our deep affection for seaside promenades that we usually refer to them by this friendlier diminutive. But in doing so, we can perhaps forget just how truly wondrous they are. Their history dates back to the 18th century, but they continue to evolve to suit us today, changing from places to promenade into accessible routes, also popular with runners and cyclists. They're public spaces, with more than their fair share of art and music for everyone to enjoy. I grew up in Worthing on the Sussex Coast, drawn almost daily to its pebbly beach and its smooth asphalt promenade. I'd pass shelters with frosted glass, pagoda-like roofs and sturdy benches, the ornate ironwork railings and the lamps, glowing amber, that ran along the…

GOOD THINGS TO DRINK ROSE, CHIA & ALMOND SHERBATI Serves 5–6 1ltr almond milk 75g caster sugar 150ml rose syrup Seeds scraped from ½ vanilla pod (or 1 tsp vanilla extract) Ice cubes 2 tsp chia seeds (or basil seeds) 75g pistachios, finely chopped 1 Combine the almond milk, sugar, rose syrup and vanilla in a blender. 2 Add 4 or 5 ice cubes and blend until smooth. Pour in the chia seeds and leave to bloom for at least 5 mins, or until they've become jelly-like. 3 Pour over ice, then garnish with a sprinkling of pistachios in each glass. Server's note: Sherbati is made during Muharram – the first month of the Islamic new year, which this year begins on 7 July. Traditionally, a big batch is made, bottled up, and donated to children in…

My garden is my passion. I work in healthcare during evenings and weekends, so I get to enjoy much of my day in it. I've been slowly redeveloping it over the past three years. What was previously lawn is now densely planted with three cobbled paths. This path leads to a small wildlife pond and pergola with seating. When I'm in my green space I feel a sense of calm but a sense of achievement, too. Libby Webb, Edinburgh, @docleaves The path was constructed out of necessity because of the wet autumn and winter. A neighbour was getting rid of a stack of old handmade bricks and it took a few days to lay. Ned, one of our Springers, prefers sticking to the path now. Jane & Rob Slater, Derbyshire,…

EVERYBODY'S FREE (TO WEAR SUNSCREEN) BY BAZ LUHRMANN “If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it…” Chances are you received this wisdom (and also “Don't mess too much with your hair” and “Do not read beauty magazines, they will only make you feel ugly”) at some point in the late 1990s. Maybe you read it in the paper. Maybe it was sent in an email. Or maybe you heard it read over a gospel version of Rozalla's Everybody's Free thanks to Baz Luhrmann's 1999 chart topper. Film director Baz first saw the words on a forwarded email, credited to the author Kurt Vonnegut. In fact, the advice originated as a 1997 column by Mary Schmich for the Chicago Tribune. Somehow, Vonnegut's name became…

I want to share my love for All My Wild Mothers by Victoria Bennett. Not only a memoir, it also features common plants, often thought weeds, and how they can be used in healing. (Re)connecting to plants around us could be what we all need. COLLECTIVE NOUNS READER RECOMMENDS As suggested by Lieke Sjerps Read a good book you want to share? Tell us all about it by emailing thesimplethings@icebergpress.co.uk IT'S IN THE BAG PADEL Like pickleball (see our September 2023 issue), padel is a racquet-based sport hitting new highs. It involves a court and a net but, like squash, also uses the courtwalls and is played in doubles. You'll need a padel racquet: smaller than a tennis racquet, but heavier, with holes across its face. They come in three…

TOW THE LINE This idiom is used to describe someone reluctantly having to follow a specific rule, or to go along with what a group decides. It feels right that it should have its origins in some olde-worlde aspect of towing, like using a rope to tow a boat through a canal lock. However, if you're being forced to go along with something, you wouldn't be towing the line. Someone/thing else would be using the line to tow you – you would be holding the line. So, actually, the correct idiom is 'toe the line'. As with many sayings, it's not clear exactly when it was first used, but it's very likely to have been in a military context: soldiers or sailors having to line up in a row with…

Lateral green Shows edge of safe channel on starboard-side: if it's on your right as you're heading into harbour, you're green to go in the UK*. Cardinal 'West' Go west, young (wo)man. Requires lateral thinking to identify: the cone looks like a letter 'W' on its side. Data buoy Part of a new buoys network – equipped to collect information on weather and the like. See a map of them all at ndbc.noaa.gov. Lateral red 'Any red port left?' is a handy way to remember red is left and port-side – but save any actual port drinking for after a safe docking. Safe water buoy Though it may resemble one, there are no humbugs here – just a sweet reassurance that it's safe navigation around it. Preferred channel It's banding…

Prosciutto, prawn & mangetout skewers with lemon chive mayo Surf, turf and crunch. Get the barbecue going for these tasty kebabs with a twist. Prosciutto, prawn & mangetout skewers with lemon chive mayo Serves 4-6 300g raw king prawns (jumbo shrimp), peeled and drained 10 slices of prosciutto 150g mangetout 1 tbsp olive oil FOR THE LEMON CHIVE MAYO: 125g mayonnaise Zest and juice 1 lemon 10g chives, chopped 1 Start by patting the drained prawns dry with paper towel. Take a slice of prosciutto and cut into quarters, then use to wrap up a prawn, so it's snugly contained in a little prosciutto blanket. Repeat until all the prawns are wrapped. 2 Thread a prawn onto a skewer, followed by a mangetout, piercing it through the flat side, followed by another prawn.…

She awakes to the sound of the sea. The white-noise whisper that had lulled her into slumber mere hours before nudges now at her subconscious, urging her to rise, to stand, to cross with bare feet to the window and gaze out at a silvery dawn. As she moves, the floorboards creak beneath her, the sigh of her own joints providing a gentle percussion to this oft-played morning song. She smiles in spite of the discomfort and busies herself with the preparation of coffee – the metal scoop dipped into the fine, dry powder, the click of the kettle, its exhale of steam. One lump for her and three for him; the spoon tinkles. It is small inside the hut. Two narrow beds, a bench, blankets stacked in a pile,…

VICTORIA SPONGE LOAF WITH STRAWBERRIES AND MINT Serves 6 160g unsalted butter, room temp 170g caster sugar 2 tsp vanilla bean paste 2 large eggs, room temp 40ml vegetable oil 150g self-raising flour, sifted 115g ground almonds ½ tsp baking powder, sifted 55g natural yogurt FOR THE ROASTED STRAWBERRIES: 300g strawberries, hulled and halved 15ml maple syrup 5–6 mint leaves, finely chopped FOR THE WHIPPED CLOTTED CREAM: 300ml double cream 125g clotted cream 40g icing sugar 1½ tsp vanilla bean paste FOR THE SUGAR SYRUP: 110g caster sugar 1 tsp vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste TO DECORATE: Micro mint shoots or chopped mint leaves 1 Preheat the oven to 170C/Fan 150C/Gas 3. Grease and line a 900g loaf tin. 2 In a bowl, mix the butter, sugar and vanilla paste until light and fluffy. 3 Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing between each…

GOOD WORK Taunton Independent Market The story so far: Michelle Beck launched Taunton Independent Market in 2020. It now takes place in Castle Square in the centre of Taunton, Somerset, on the second Sunday and last Saturday of each month. tauntonmarket.co.uk About 8,000 people attended the first market. I'd worked on it for over a year and people loved it. That was on 8 March 2020… then came lockdown. We went online and I became the chief deliverer of goods, sharing products and keeping our name out there. I'm proud of that. After lockdown, it took 18 months to reach the numbers of that first market again. It is a market but it's also an event. Something different to what's on offer locally. We've had storm troopers, glass blowing, 'bounce…

Maps have captured imaginations for centuries. Far more than an aid for navigation, these diagrammatic representations of land and sea are a powerful tool for understanding the world and our place within it, allowing us to lend order to complex environments, express our curious nature and feel a sense of wonderment. From our earliest illustrations of the world, filled with religious symbolism and fearsome beasts, to charts by European explorers piecing together observations and local lore, maps have long been a means of storytelling. But behind every story is a narrator, creative yet flawed; if you think you can trust a map, think again. Maps are political and cultural documents, distorted representations riddled with errors, propaganda and mischief. Some depict Greenland as larger than Africa, others include made-up streets or…

THIS MONTH WE READ REWIRE: BREAK THE CYCLE, ALTER YOUR THOUGHTS AND CREATE LASTING CHANGE BY NICOLE VIGNOLA In a nutshell Neuroscientist Nicole Vignola is keen to make people aware that our brains and thinking patterns are not fixed or predetermined but malleable and capable of change. Therefore, the habits and behaviours that we adopt from an early age can be altered. Okay, so what's the science? It's about using the principles of neuroplasticity – the ability of the brain to change and adapt in response to internal and external factors. Until recently it was thought that the brain was incapable of change after a certain age, but neuroscientists have discovered that it can in fact change in adulthood, allowing us to learn new things, but also unlearn unwanted behaviours,…

A PLACE TO STAY Heading to the coast for the weekend in high summer can seem like a good idea until you realise half the country has had the same one. However, if you choose your destination carefully so you've plenty of coastline to pick from, but situate yourself a little way inland, you can have both your seaside fun and a quiet haven when you're ready to retreat. The Jurassic coast has miles of beaches to house its many visitors and the small town of Bridport, with its independent shops and restaurants in the old town and traditional seaside fun to be had at West Bay, is one of those places people visit and quickly start envisaging a future life spent living by the sea. Where we stayed Describing…

Turns out it is really hard to wriggle out of sacks suspended over gorges. And who has the time? However, some escapology tricks are more applicable to real life… Learn the ropes Escapist: Harry Houdini is famous for his escapes from tied ropes, or even from a straitjacket. Realist: Trying to get your cardie off at a picnic without dropping the houmous. Or unravelling a string of bunting in under two minutes. Like a pro: In such situations, Houdini's advice was to bend forward and start 'working the arms down over the hips until the hands are just behind the knees …' You'll get the knack after a while.' Off the cuff Escapist: Getting out of locked handcuffs is an escapologist's staple. Dave Cox's record for 'fastest behind the back…

Scan to see more If you have a garden in the UK, at a conservative estimate there'll be 500 species around now that you might reasonably see. There is a lot going on and much of that can be summed up in one word – reproduction. If ever an insect was representative of the wondrous, abundant, hell-for-leather world of the summer invertebrate, it'd have to be the common red soldier beetle. It lives a brief life in which it eats and has sex. It doesn't travel far, with no ambitions other than those mentioned. The flower heads of the plants known as umbellifers are a mecca for insects. Of all the umbel-dwellers, the common red soldier beetle is surely the most obvious lothario, colloquially called the 'hogweed bonking beetle'. They…

MISCELLANY SOLUTIONS Red Herrings Kumquat, RED HERRING, coconut, redwood, avocado, cypress, banksia, hickory, sequoia, RED HERRING. Quick-fire quiz 1. One Day by David Nicholls; 2. Puffling; 3. The bikini; 4. Carnations; 5. Southend Pier (at 1.34 miles) Seeing Double 1. Dainty 2. Spinal 3. Bistro 4. System 5. Scruff 6. Abrubt 7. Remedy 8. Camera 9. Winter 10. Lentil Mystery keyword: Instrument 'THE PUZZLE MAKERS' SOLUTIONS CROSSWORD Solutions to both cryptic and straight clues SUDOKU WORD SEARCH…