Recipe | Watermelon lollies

A simple idea for a pretty and cooling treat

Serves 6

½ small watermelon

6 wooden lolly sticks (recycled from ice lollies)

1 Cut the watermelon in half and cut into slices. Cut out 6 triangle shapes with the watermelon skin at the bottom.

2 Make a small inch-long incision into the middle of the skin and insert the wooden lolly stick.

3 Lay the lollies on a pretty plate and put in the fridge to keep cool. Serve as a refreshing bite any time of day or as a casual palate cleanser between a main course and dessert for a supper in the garden.

This idea is just one of the recipes in our July issue for a celebratory gathering for a special day. The menu includes chilled cucumber soup in tea cups, beetroot and horseradish bites, spanakopita, a delicious fig salad and a showstopper of a sponge cake decorated with berries and edible flowers. It’s a lovely menu for a birthday party, get-together of old friends or simply to celebrate summer having properly arrived this weekend. You can find all the recipes starting on p30 and you’ll find the July issue in any shop worth its salt now or online (see links below).

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More ice lollies to make…

Cake facts | Upside-down cake

A look at the history of this wrong-way-up cake, which is a classic… whichever way you look at it

The history of cake is dotted liberally with fine examples of retro ideas that have wholly endured. In fact, why we think of them as retro is a mystery, since they never really went away. The upside-down cake is an excellent example, and none more than the classic - the Pineapple Upside-down Cake, which has been eliciting excited ‘oohs’ from children and overgrown children alike for over a century.

Upside-down cakes have, in truth, existed for hundreds of years. When cakes would have been cooked over a fire, a clever way to get a nice decorative top with caramelised fruit adorning it, was to put the fruit and sugar in the bottom of a skillet over the fire, so that when the skillet is turned out, the unattractive top becomes the bottom of the cake and the fruity goodness that was on the bottom becomes the top.

But it wasn’t until the advent of the Pineapple Upside-down cake that topsy-turvy patisserie really ‘had a moment’. And for that we have to thank one James Dole. That’s right. Him of the tinned pineapple.

In 1901 Dole invented a machine that could cut pineapples into perfectly sized rings, that he could put into tins. Quickly, one of the most popular uses for pineapple rings became to put their flavour and attractive shape into an upside-down cake. As an aside, we’d also like to award a retro medal to whomever was the first amateur baker to pop a few maraschino cherries in the holes of the pineapple rings. Genius!

In our July issue, we have a less retro but no less welcome topsy turvy cake from Annie Bell’s Baking Bible (Kyle Books). Photography by Con Poulos. Find it on page 7.

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In praise of potting sheds

Because it’s about more than the soil and seedlings

There’s no denying it, a potting shed is endlessly useful. As well as being a spot for bringing on seedlings, it’s a place to work on your own soil, keep all your tools neat and tidy and have your seed packets and catalogues stacked away….

But that’s not really why any of us have a potting shed, as any fool knows. For the uninitiated, and those not yet fully throwing themselves into potting shed life, here’s what they’re really for:

1. Having a grown-up wendy house. No one truly gets too old to appreciate the joy of a tiny little house of one’s own to pass the time in, play in and arrange ‘just so’. A place no one else will try to invade (because it’s too darn small).

2. Keeping your most delicious comestibles. If you’ve any kind of sense you’ll kit out your potting shed with a few essentials. Nothing too fancy. You don’t want to arouse interest. Just an old Thermos you can take out full of boiling water, a nice enamel mug, a small box of a few interesting herbal teas, and most importantly, a thoroughly uninteresting looking old biscuit tin in which to secrete cakes, biscuits and other treats. A cup of tea and a slice of fruitcake never taste so good as when they’re secret.

3. Hiding from your nearest and dearest. Yes, we’re sure they’re lovely but sometimes we all just need to disappear for an hour. The potting shed offers that ideal combination of being outside the four walls of the house (thus putting off potential ‘company’ happening upon you) but not actually off the premises (so you don’t strictly speaking have to tell anyone you’ve gone there. If you slip up the garden like a ninja it could be a good half hour before anyone notices you’ve gone.)

4. Communing with spiders. Because somehow they count as welcome company rather than unwanted intruders. You might look askance at your other half trying to muscle their way into your potting shed but Gerald?! Well, he came with the bricks. And he’s always there to lend a hand (or eight) when needed. Gerald’s welcome to stay.

5. Enjoying without distraction. Do you find you only ever really do the whole crossword, get stuck into a book or sit and listen to the afternoon play on Radio 4 when you’re not in your own house? That’s likely because there’s always a job you ‘should’ be doing to take the place of what you want to be doing. Get a potting shed and suddenly all that laundry that needs folding, the drain that needs unblocking and the spuds that need peeling for dinner disappear! Out of sight out of mind, see? Who knows? Perhaps by the time you skulk back indoors someone else will have done the chores for you! We live in hope.

6. Doing some Proper Pottering. After all where can you truly potter if not in a potting shed, sniffing the unmistakable smell of compost, sweeping up, scrubbing the odd pot and arranging seed packets. There’s no place where it’s easier to be gently useful and relaxedly occupied.

If you’re already yearning for a potting shed of one’s own, pick up our July issue, which has instructions on how to make your own potting shed in a day (like the one pictured above). It’s small but very easy to put together and there’s enough room for you, a newspaper, a comfy stool… and Gerald, too.  

The project is adapted from Upcycling Outdoors by Max McMurdo (Jacqui Small). Photography: Brent Darby.

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June: a final thought

This marks the end of our June ‘shine’ issue. We hope it brought a little sunshine into your life.

As is tradition now, here’s a haiku we penned as an ode to June. Write your own in the comments below or leave it for us on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. Five, seven, five, remember. We’ll send a lovely book to the author of our favourite.

Grass-stained feet, bed before dark,

Days longer than nights.

Midsummer folly all round.

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More wit and wisdom from our back covers…

More from our June issue…

Pudding facts: strawberries and cream

Like the look of these strawberries and cream muffins? Join us in delving into their history (before we delve into their paper cases and get our faces mucky)

Wimbledon begins again in just over a week. And out come the strawberries and cream. Of course, everyone associates the dish with the tennis tournament but we only recently learned why, and just how far back strawberries and cream goes…

It’s summer, 1509. Henry VII has recently shuffled off his mortal coil and his son, Henry (soon to be VIII) has set about spending his father’s carefully tended coffers. Henry has married Catherine of Aragon and is shortly to have a bun in the royal oven. As is custom, on ascending the throne, he has also released most of the country’s prisoners. A generous, if fairly rash idea. All in all, it’s early days, they know nothing of the difficulties to come. It’s a summer of love, of excess… and of feasting.

Royal banquets were expected to feed up to 600 at a time. Twice a day. A feat that would make a bottle of Fairy Liquid cower today. Thomas Wolsey was tasked with arranging all this and, with 600-odd guests chomping their way through up to 44 courses at any one meal, some of those courses would need to be very simple to prepare.

The combination of strawberries and cream is said to have first appeared at one of these feasts in 1509. Cream had previously been considered a peasant food - the Turkey Twizzler of its day - but the dish went down a storm. And of course, what was served for the King soon became fashionable in every well-to-do dining room across England. English ladies became so excited about the pud, they were charging their gardeners to cultivate strawberries to serve to their own dinner guests. The country went briefly strawberries and cream mad.

But whence came the tennis link? Thomas Wolsey’s palace had a tennis court, where he apparently also served strawberries and cream. Well don’t we all have that one signature pud we always fall back on when guests descend?

By the time the Wimbledon Tennis Tournament began in 1877, it was obviously peak strawberry season, but also Tudor history was ‘having a moment’. It seems to have a moment at least once a century - Hilary Mantel didn’t jump willy nilly on that particular bandwagon, of course. So all the planets were aligned for strawberries and cream to make a comeback. And come back they did. But they never left.

And why would they? Sweet, juicy strawberries and rich, cold cream are one of history’s most winning combinations, going together like love and marriage, fun and feasting… Henry VIII and gout…. Yes, maybe go easy on the cream with those strawberries this Wimbledon.

We’re celebrating Wimbledon with these strawberries and cream muffins (pictured) from our June issue, which is on sale now if you’d like the recipe. Just the thing to accompany your cuppa during the Women’s Final. The recipe from The Tin & Traybake Cookbook by Sam Gates (Robinson). Photography: Peter Wright

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More cake facts…

Recipe: A wild midsummer cocktail

Strawberry Lemony Heaven cocktail

Celebrating the solstice tonight? You can whip this cocktail up quickly or take your thyme and make the syrup, too. Happy Litha!

Serves 1
30ml thyme syrup* (that you prepared earlier) or simple syrup
(if you didn’t)
2 sprigs lemon thyme (if you haven’t made the thyme syrup)
2 large or 3 medium strawberries, washed and sliced
60ml white rum, vodka, or gin
22ml freshly-squeezed lemon juice
soda water
ice cubes

Garnish
lemon thyme sprig, sliced
strawberry
lemon wheel
straw

Tools
muddler
cocktail shaker with strainer
collins glass

1 Fill the glass with ice. If you haven’t made thyme syrup (below), smack 2 fresh sprigs of thyme between your palms to release the essential oils. Drop into the cocktail shaker with a dash of simple syrup.

2 If you have made thyme syrup, skip the step above and instead muddle the strawberry slices thoroughly with a dash of the thyme syrup in the shaker, to release all the strawberry juice. If you like, you can let them sit for about 30 mins to macerate slightly.

3 If you’re using fresh thyme, add strawberries now and muddle as above. For both methods, pour the rest of the thyme or simple syrup and your remaining ingredients (except the soda water) into the shaker.

4 Fill it two-thirds of the way up with ice, cover and shake hard for 20 seconds. Strain the mixture into the glass of ice. Don’t worry about tiny bits of thyme; they look attractive.

5 Garnish with a fresh sprigs of lemon thyme, strawberry slices, and a lemon wheel. Add the soda water and a straw.

*Thyme Syrup (for the Strawberry Lemony Heaven cocktail)

Makes approximately 250ml

250ml water
200g caster sugar
4 sprigs thyme, each about the length of a finger

Equipment
Sealable, heatproof presentation bottle, sterilized

1 Stir the water and sugar together in a non-stick pan over a low heat and let simmer for 2 mins.

2 Smack the unwashed thyme between your palms to release the oils and drop them into the pan. Immediately remove the pan from the heat. Let the thyme infuse for 10 mins.

3 While still piping hot, strain the liquid into a wide-mouthed pitcher, then funnel into the sterilized presentation bottle and seal.

4 Store in the fridge for up to 2 weeks.

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From our June issue…

More midsummer cocktails…

If you’re planning a gathering we have more wild cocktail recipes here on our blog.

Cocktail recipes from Wild Cocktails from the Midnight Apothecary by Lottie Muir (CICO Books, £16.99). Over 100 recipes using home-grown and foraged fruits, herbs and edible flowers. www.thecocktailgardener.co.uk

Win | a sundae kit worth £100

Sunny days call for sundaes and you can win a sundae kit for summer here

What’s your favourite ice-cream sundae? Knickerbocker glory, chocolate fudge brownie, banana split, or perhaps peach melba? It’s a list of names to transport you back to childhood, when pushing a long-handled spoon through layers of ripe fruit, gloopy sauce and oozing ice-cream was the height of summery indulgence. It’s a tradition worth bringing back…

Mackie’s of Scotland knows all about good traditions. At their farm, making delicious ice-cream is a sky-to-scoop production – tending the grass-fed cows that produce Mackie’s thick and creamy milk and using renewable energy to magic it into frozen tubs of goodness in a range of flavours from raspberry ripple to salted caramel.

As well as offering fantastic flavours, Mackie’s has no shortage of inspiration on how to enjoy your ice-cream. Set out ice-creams, fresh fruit, sauces, nuts and sprinkles and let friends and family build their own sundaes. You can melt Mackie’s chocolate for an instant sauce, or dip wafers into it to make the best kind of glue for sugar sprinkles. You could even top a glass of prosecco with strawberry ice-cream for a grown-up take on an old-fashioned float. Mackie’s is giving away Summer Sundae Kits to get you started – for your chance to win, enter our competition (see below). Find out more at mackies.co.uk.

There are five Mackie’s Summer Sundae Kits up for grabs. Each includes:

12 Mackie’s vouchers for a 1 litre-tub of ice-cream

12 bars of Mackie’s chocolate

A selection of toppings

2 sundae glasses

A professional ice-cream scoop and 4 long spoons

A Mackie’s recipe book, tea towel and apron.

How to enter

For your chance to win, press the button below and tell us how many sundae glasses are included in the prize.

Terms & conditions: Competition closes at 11.59pm on 7 August 2019. Winners will be selected at random from all correct entries after this date, and notified soon after. You can’t swap your Sundae Kit for cash, and the prize is non-transferable. Vouchers can be redeemed at any Mackie’s stockist – find your nearest via mackies.co.uk. You’ll find our full terms and conditions on page 127 and online at icebergpress.co.uk/comprules.

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More ice cream ideas

More from our July issue…

Win | a UK holiday worth £500

Feeling inspired to book your next holiday? Classic Cottages is giving away a £500 voucher

Picture an idyllic British summer getaway and a holiday cottage probably features somewhere in your imaginings. Classic Cottages has been curating property treasures in the UK since 1977. Its high-quality collection features homes across the south and west, from Cornwall to the Isle of Wight. You can browse them all at classic.co.uk. And now the company is giving away a £500 voucher to one The Simple Things reader with this brilliant competition.

To be in with a chance of winning simply enter below and answer the question.

Terms & conditions: Competition closes at 11.59pm on 7 August 2019. A winner will be selected at random from all correct entries received and notified soon after. The voucher is valid for 12 months, until 7 August 2020. You can use it on any Classic Cottages property, subject to availability, and you can’t swap it for cash or transfer it. You’ll find our full terms and conditions on page 127 of the magazine and online at icebergpress.co.uk/comprules.

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More fun ways to spend a weekend…

More from our July issue…

Playlist | Songs about dogs

Listen at thesimplethings.com/blog/dogplaylist

DJs: Clare Gogerty, with the help of readers Wendy Browning, Louise Collyer, Carole Hirst and Michelle Monteleagre.

More of our playlists…

More from our July isssue…

Win | a foodie hamper

A summer foodie bundle to make picnics even lovelier could be yours

Summer starts in earnest, it’s said, when elder trees burst into flower, and it ends in late August when elderberries are ripe. Delicate elderflowers explode in hedgerows across the Quicke’s estate and beyond. Only the best ingredients are good enough for Quicke’s clothbound cheese, from grass-fed cows’ milk made by the Quicke’s herd, to Cornish Sea Salt to mix into the curds. So, when it came to developing the Elderflower Clothbound Cheese – a creamy hard cheese with a flicker of real elderflower – only the best hand-picked wild elderflower would do.

To celebrate the latest batch of Quicke’s Elderflower Clothbound Cheese (above), they’re giving away a summer foodie bundle from a few of our favourite South West businesses who are also making the most of this wonderful summer blossom. The prize includes:

• Nancarrow Farm Feast tickets for two, worth £40 each, valid for summer feast nights down on the farm in Truro, Cornwall. • Easygoing English aperitif, Sharpham Sparkling Elderflower. • Lyme Bay Gin, bursting with traditional botanic flavours and citrus and elderflower notes. • Luscombe Wild Elderflower Bubbly, a soft drink infused with blossom foraged in the June sunshine. • And of course – Quicke’s Elderflower Clothbound Cheese.

For your chance to win, enter below.

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More from our July issue…

Celebrate | Independent Bookshops Week

We’re going to be frank: if you don’t love a good bookshop there’s something wrong with you

Let’s face it: all bookshops are magical places, but an independent bookshop is always a particularly welcome find. Unbound by the policy of huge companies, an indie can do pretty much what it likes, catering to the needs of its local community and selling bestsellers alongside books that might otherwise not see the light of day.

Today marks the start of Independent Bookshops Week (15-22 June. Follow @booksaremybag for more information). The week is run by The Booksellers’ Association and aims to celebrate one-off bookshops with events, readings, signings, literary lunches and much more.

Pictured is one of our favourite bookshops, in Lewes, East Sussex. Bag of Books is actually a children’s bookshop but is irresistible, not just for browsing new children’s titles for gifts, but also for unearthing old childhood favourites. Like many towns in the UK, Lewes is home to several indie bookshops so is well worth a weekend trip if you aren’t local. But we’d love to hear about your independent bookshops, wherever you are in the UK this week.

Comment below to tell us about your favourite independent bookshop and what makes it so brilliant. We’ll pick the author our favourite recommendation and send a lovely book from our shelves as a thank you.

Off you go… And SSSSSHHHHHH! We’re trying to read!

More from our June issue…

More for bookworms…

One small change | lose cling film

Little changes you can make to create a big difference for the planet

Here at The Simple Things we’ve been trying to make one small change to our lifestyles each month - things we know we should be doing, like switching to refillable soap and cleaning products, using cloths instead of throwaway wipes. This month, inspired by our Cups of Tea feature with the co-owner of The Beeswax Wrap Company, Fran Beer, we’re hoping to try getting shot of cling film.

Let’s be honest, cling film is super-convenient. But it’s plastic, it’s not (very) reusable and there are much more attractive options. Here are a few swaps you could make to bring a little more joy and a little less wrappy plastic to your life…

Leftover cake

Use a pretty tin instead. If you don’t already have a dedicated cake tin, you need to practise a little more self-care anyway.

Cheese

Beeswax wraps (above) are ideal for odd bits of cheese. Get a pack of different sized wraps and you’ll have enough for your large wedge of brie or your knob-end of parmesan.

Lunchtime sandwiches

Wax or cloth wraps work well for sarnies, too, but a reusable sandwich box will save it from getting squished in your bag.

Half a tin of soup, beans (or anything)

Reusable can lids (like the ones they sell for pet food) work a treat and just pop in the dishwasher after use ready for next time.

Half used veg

If pre-chopped most veg can be kept from spoiling by putting it in a bowl of water in the fridge (good for carrot sticks, scrubbed potatoes etc). Otherwise, store cut veg like peppers and cucumber in the salad drawer. In all honesty, the cut side gets a little dry whether wrapped in cling film or not so you’re best not bothering and just slicing off a thin bit of the exposed edge before you next chop some off.

Bread

Get a bread bin. See our self-care note above re cake tins. It’s just wrong not to have one.

Homemade biscuits

Don’t be silly. Just finish them off, for goodness’ sake!

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More ways to live well…

What I treasure | My allotment

Shelley Verdon tells us why this small patch of land is what she holds most dear

Quite what possessed me to get an allotment with no experience in growing anything, I’m not sure, but I’d recently moved back home to my mother’s flat in 2015 after a stint working away. The allotment is on the River Mole in Surrey, nestled between farmland and a wholesale nursery. The first thing I planted was a wildflower meadow. That may seem unusual, but my decision-making about the allotment hasn’t been particularly rational. I wanted plants that would bring me joy.

So I toiled one early-autumn day, clearing the weeds, preparing the ground and then scattering the seeds. And then I waited. Not much happened and eventually, by late winter/ early spring, I gave up and threw some black plastic sheeting over the patch, thinking the area must have gone to weeds.

A couple of weeks later the plants were pushing up against the black plastic, trying to get to the light. I realised with delight that I had a growing wildflower meadow. The meadow is a mixture of cowslips, oxeye daisies, thistles, lady’s bedstraw, sorrel, ragged robin, buttercups and vetch. And the insects came. It started out with mayflies bobbing diligently above my meadow, followed by small beetles, hoverflies, bees, bumblebees, crickets, blackfly and ladybirds. I’ve been amazed at how much pleasure watching the insects gives me. Sometimes I lie down between my rose bed and the wildflower meadow to watch the bees and butterflies moving from thistle to thistle and listen to bumblebees vibrating in my apothecary roses. 

My grandmother died a couple of years ago, then my mother was diagnosed with an illness and made redundant. I would bring her to the allotment on Sunday evenings, the evening our family used to get together before my brother and his family moved to Australia. She’s a barefoot and haphazard gardener, which is fascinating, amusing and infuriating to watch. She throws seeds without care, then proceeds to grow things that no one else on the allotments can.

I’m not sure how I’d have got through the last couple of years without the allotment. It has been a godsend. “Better than winning the lottery,” said my mother. I should point out, however, that neither of us has won the lottery yet.

Tell us about your treasures

What means a lot to you? Tell us in 500 words and email to thesimplethings@icebergpress.co.uk and your essay could appear in a future issue of The Simple Things.

The above piece was featured in the June issue of The Simple Things. Get hold of your copy of this month's issue -  buy, download or subscribe

More from our June issue…

More things we have treasured…

Folklore | foxgloves

Why foxgloves are called foxgloves

The tall, colourful spires that tower over cottage garden borders in June have a wealth of stories behind them. And no wonder really. They are fascinatingly paradoxical - digitalis is a deadly poison but is used in life-saving heart medicine; beautiful - the pretty, bell-shaped flowers, are dappled with spots inside… All in all, they are simply crying out for a fairytale backstory, and folklore has provided generously.

Some stories have told that the word ‘foxglove’ is merely a misrepresentation of ‘folk’s glove’, ie gloves little people might wear.

Another says that the gloves do indeed belong to foxes and that fairies gave them to the foxes to put on their paws to enable them to sneak silently into the hen house without being heard.This story is echoed in the belief that the mottled spots inside the flowers are actually fairy handprints. DNA evidence will always catch you out in the end, fairies.

What fairies have against hens we aren’t sure, but perhaps it was more to do with being fans of foxes than enemies of friends. Because another tale goes that the bell-shaped flowers would make a magical noise when rung and the fairies taught foxes to ring the bells of foxgloves to warn other foxes when a fox hunt was nearby.

The botanist RCA Prior thought that the name came from foxes-glew, meaning ‘folks’ music’, supporting the ‘bell’ theory, but this idea has been debunked by etymologists [https://blog.oup.com/2010/11/foxglove/].

Indeed, the argument becomes more complex when you take into account that the foxglove is known by several different names, including todtail (fox tail)’, dead men’s bells, ladies’ fingers, bunny rabbits, floppy dock and dragon’s mouth.

So who knows where the name originated. But if the glove fits...

In our June issue, we have a feature on Anne-Marie Curtin’s cut flower garden, where the beautiful foxgloves above were grown (foragefor.co.uk).

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More on cutting flowers…

Cook | Mackerel and samphire fishcakes

Samphire is summer on a plate. Try these with a vibrant Green Goddess sauce

These delicious fishcakes can be made with foraged samphire, which is all over mudflats and estuaries at this time of year. But feel free to buy it from Waitrose or fishmongers if you had a less active lunch in mind. You can also buy samphire plants to grow from specialist nurseries. Plant next year in April or May for a crop in summer. Make the Green Goddess sauce before you go if you’re off foraging and keep it in a tightly sealed jar.

300g new potatoes

2 tbsp soured cream

A couple of knobs of butter

250g smoked mackerel fillets

A handful of samphire, washed and chopped

A few tbsp plain flour

Lemon to squeeze over for the dressing

2 anchovies

1 clove crushed garlic

5 tbsp mayonnaise

5 tbsp sour cream

A handful of parsley leaves

handful of tarragon leaves

A bunch of chives

2 tbsp lemon juice

1 Cook the potatoes in boiling salted water until tender. Drain, add the soured cream, a knob of butter and a few grinds of black pepper and mash roughly, so there are still plenty of bigger chunks. Set aside to cool.

2 Flake the mackerel fillets into the potatoes, again leaving plenty of larger pieces, and add the samphire. Form into little patties and transfer to the fridge to firm up.

3 Meanwhile make the dressing. Put all the ingredients in a blender and blitz until smooth and green. Taste and season as required. The dressing will keep in a jar in the fridge for up to one week.

4 Put the flour on a plate, then roll the chilled fishcakes in the flour. Heat a knob of butter in a frying pan and fry the fishcakes until nicely browned on both sides. Serve hot with lemon and the green goddess dressing.

This recipe is from Lia Leendertz’s foraging feature in our June issue, which has lots more samphire recipes in it from a light lunch idea to a fresh sea vegetable and seafood dashi, as well as information on where to find samphire and how to cook it.

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More foraging ideas for throughout the year…

Places to go: Pier review

Who doesn’t love a pier? We’ve found the best around Britain for every sort of seasidey day out

Herne Bay Pier by Rob Ball

Who doesn’t love a pier? We’ve found the best around Britain for every sort of seasidey day out

Piers for pleasure are a uniquely British thing, which is a surprise really. Why wouldn’t anyone want to be able to head out into the sea without getting their hair wet, after all? We’ve selected a few of our favourites from around the country, each celebrated for its own particular pleasures.

Best for a good stroll

You don’t want to take a long walk of a short pier, do you? So head to Southend, which is Britain’s longest pier at 2,156m long. Quite a whopper. Sir John Betjeman, founder of The National Piers Society once said ‘The pier is Southend. Southend is the pier.’

Best for train travel

Many piers have a small railway on them. If it wasn’t nailed down the Victorians put a train track on it, of course. But Hythe Pier is home to Britain’s oldest continuously operating narrow gauge pier railway and has services every half an hour. You can take the train to the ferry service from the end of the pier that crosses Southampton Channel to Southampton.

Best for foodies

You won’t go hungry on Llandudno pier. It has a stall selling freshly baked pies, others selling smoked oysters and muscles, a branch of the Great British Cheese Company and a traditional sweet shop. You can wash it all down with a pint of craft beer from the Pier Bar.

Best for fishing

Deal Pier is apparently a prime spot for landing mackerel, as well as pollack, sole, garfish and mullet in the summer months. Best spots are the lower deck at the south and north corners and the upper deck between the second and third shelters, facing towards Dover. Fact fans: Deal is also Britain’s ‘youngest’ pier.

Best for thrill and spills

Bournemouth Pier has a pier-to-beach zip-line, so you can play at being the Milk Tray Man, and its old theatre now houses activities for adrenaline junkies, such as climbing walls, an aerial assault course and a vertical drop slide. Wheeeeeeeee!

Best for old-fashioned fun

Blackpool’s North Pier is one of the most iconic of all and a trip here is like stepping back in time. Fish and chips, fortune tellers, traditional sweets and carousels… We can almost hear strains of ‘Oh I do like to be Beside the Seaside’.

Best for a brush with wildlife

Fort William Town Pier, on the west coast of Scotland is home to the fabulous Crannog Restaurant. It used to be a bait shed but you can now sit and enjoy some of the best and freshest fish you’ll ever taste and then take a cruise from the pier down Loch Linnhe where you’ll often spot common and grey seals, porpoises and sometimes golden eagles.

Best for completely bonkers entertainment

Southwold Pier is a lovely day out but its best bit is the Under the Pier Show, a room full of homemade penny slot machines created by Tim Hunkin, a writer, cartoonist and engineer. Try, if you dare, the Autofrisk, where a pair of inflated rubber gloves give you the experience of being frisked. Or hop on Walk The Dog, a treadmill with a life-size fake dog and screens simulating both your view and the dog’s view of the walk - watch out for the sudden increase in speed when the dog spies a cat! And don’t miss Fly Drive, a simulator in which you are a fly and have to gorge on as much sugar as you can before being swatted. Utterly mad and total genius.

Find out more about British piers at The National Piers Society. And in our June issue, we have more of the stunning pictures (above) from Funland by Rob Ball (Hoxton Mini Press), a celebration of British coastal communities and their architecture in pictures.

Get hold of your copy of this month's The Simple Things - buy, download or subscribe

More from our June issue…

More seaside pleasures…

Sponsored post | The Only Way Is Ethics

Abel & Cole is committed to food sourced from organic farms. Ed Ayton from its Green Team explains

How did it all start?

It was 30 years ago (aah, the 80s!) that Keith Abel ditched law for veg and never looked back. He started with a bag of spuds, selling door to door. Before long, a chap called Bernard Gauvier, who we still work with today, offered him some organic potatoes. Organic spuds became spuds and eggs, and then spuds, eggs and vegetables, and so Abel & Cole’s organic veg box was born.

What are the biggest changes that have happened since then?

Going digital in the early 00s. We went from going door to door to selling online. It’s meant we can share our love of organic food more easily.

What are you most passionate about?

We’d be remiss if we didn’t mention what started it all – a love of organic. It’s at the heart of everything we do. We’re about food as it should be, free from artificial fertilisers, herbicides and GM feeds – food that meets UK certified organic standards. Real commitment is needed to go organic, and you can taste the difference.

Tell us about the eco credentials you’re most proud of.

We have a lot to be proud of! For starters, the packaging innovations we’ve made. We avoid it altogether where possible, and invest a lot into reusing, recycling and reducing what we do use – we’ve calculated that our fruit and veg deliveries use 71% less plastic than the major supermarkets. Instead of polystyrene boxes we use wool to insulate the cold items in our deliveries, and we’ve also developed alternatives such as our compostable carrot bags. If any of our customers aren’t able to recycle or compost something we’ve sent, we’ll pick it up the next week and do it for them.

Celebrating seasonal food and prioritising UK farmers reduces our energy costs. Working closely with our suppliers to plan their harvests together, being flexible and seasonal with what goes into our boxes, and inspiring our customers with delicious leftover recipes, are some of our strategies for reducing food waste. In our pursuit of offering the most sustainable service we can, everything is considered: even our paper newsletters are FSC-certified, carbon-balanced and printed using vegetable ink.

How do you keep ahead of the competition?

By sticking to our values and always asking what we can do better. Through working directly with our growers, makers and bakers, we can continue to bring our customers new and exciting organic food. We can offer technical and financial assistance to support their innovation (like unheated polytunnel growing, to achieve what could be the first commercial, organic sweet potato crop in the UK), or help them through their organic certification process.

What’s next for the company?

Lettuce just look into our crystal ball... We continue to innovate, whether that’s developing our packaging, being part of the Clean Van Commitment (helping the UK put more electric vans our roads) or building on our work as a socially responsible B Corp. We’ve never been ones to rest on our laurels – it’s what’s kept us going since the 80s

More from our June issue…

May: a final thought

We hope you enjoyed our May ‘Relish’ issue, and our back cover cartoon

This month we have loved celebrating the outdoors, relishing long weekends and making the most of the late spring sunshine. In homage to all that, here’s our May haiku. We’ve chosen the theme of casting not a ‘clout’ until May be out. But do have a go at writing your own (on anything May-related) and leave it in the comments below. We’ll send a lovely book to the author of our favourite.

Discard vests in May!

When they said ‘cast ne’er a clout’

They meant the hawthorn.

More thoughts from our back cover…

More from our May issue…

Recipe: The Picnic loaf

Planning to picnic this weekend? We love this fancy sandwich

Half sandwich, half pie, this picnic loaf crams the best of the local farm shop into one easy-to-carry meal. Prepare it the night before so the flavours have time to soak in. You can chop and change the ingredients according to what’s available. Find this and more in Pitch Up Eat Local by Ali Ray (£16.99, AA Publishing). 

The picnic loaf

Serves 6

1 cob loaf (the crusty round one)
1 garlic clove, halved
2 tbsp pesto (from a jar is fine)

For the filling:
2 courgettes, sliced lengthways
2 red and 2 yellow peppers, seeded and sliced in thick lengths
2 tbsp or so olive oil
200g cheese (whatever you can find locally – a soft-rind/mozzarella/goat’s cheese)
200g sliced charcuterie meats or ham
a good handful salad leaves
2 tbsp fresh basil leaves
salt and pepper

1  Carefully cut the top off the cob loaf (save this for later) and hollow out the middle to leave a shell. Don’t make the walls too thin as it won’t stay crisp.

2  Toss the courgettes and peppers in the olive oil and put on a preheated griddle or BBQ grid. Cook for about 4–5 mins on each side until soft and lightly charred. Put to one side to cool.

3  Rub the cut garlic clove over the insides of the bread shell, then use a spoon to spread the pesto all around the inside walls and under the lid.

4  Blot the grilled veg with kitchen roll, then and slice the cheese.  Season both well with salt and pepper, then start building up layers of veg, cheese, meat and salad leaves. Finish with a layer of basil leaves. The hollow in the bread must be filled well.

5  Put the top of the bread back on, then wrap the whole thing tightly in clingfilm.  Put a plate on top and weigh down with something heavy to let the flavours fuse together for at least 2 hours, preferably overnight, in a cool-box. 

6  Cut into thick, cake-style slices to eat now, or pack in your lunch-box and take on your adventures.

This recipe originally was published in June 2015 - and it tastes just as good, if not better, now.

More picnic inspiration…

From our May issue…

Competition | Win a £500 garden spending spree

You could win a voucher from Garden Trading to transform your outdoor space

Summer has arrived and it’s time to make the most of your garden. A few plants are a must, as is a comfortable place to sit and soak up the sun. Once you’ve got the basics covered, the rest is up to your imagination and the constraints of your purse. Which is where this brilliant £500 voucher from Garden Trading comes in. With such generous help with the budget, you can make a garden that’s all your own, manicured or informal, urban or country.

For a summer of dining outdoors, you could spend part of your voucher on beautiful crockery and cutlery. The tactile new Ithaca Meze crockery collection is handcrafted and glazed in neutral tones and specially designed for sharing feasts. Mix and match pieces including ceramic bowls, sharing boards and stylish brass cutlery, then gather friends and family for a celebratory outdoor meal. Find the full collection at gardentrading.co.uk.

Enter below and answer the following question: What is the name of Garden Trading’s new crockery collection?

The competition closes at 11.59pm on 12 July 2019. A winner will be selected at random from all correct entries received and notified soon after. The winner cannot transfer the prize or swap it for cash. Details of our full terms are online at icebergpress.co.uk/comprules.

More from our June issue…

More garden inspiration…