“Hello sunshine
So glad to see you sunshine
Hello sunshine
It’s been dark for a very long time”
A bit of sunshine, a bit of rain and a lot of love. Hear the playlist here
DJ: FRANCES AMBLER
Playlist | A Breath of Fresh Air
Photography: Catherine Frawley
Recipe | a picnic pie for the garden
A delicious picnic pie tastes as good in the garden as it does on a blanket in the woods
This lovely layered veggie pie beats soggy sandwiches hands down. One slice is never enough. You can find the recipe for this and the rest of our outdoor menu in our April issue… Salad jars with peanut butter dressing, tomato, mozzarella and prosciutto skewers, homemade scotch eggs and berry cheesecake.
Serves 6-8
You will need:
400g butternut squash, cubed
1 red onion, sliced
Olive oil
1 tbsp fresh rosemary, finely chopped
1 tbsp fresh sage, finely chopped
50g soft goat’s cheese
2 large peppers
1 courgette, sliced
150g baby spinach
100g ricotta
½ tsp freshly grated nutmeg
500g shortcrust pastry
1 large egg, beaten
How to make:
1 Pre-heat the oven to 200C/ 180C Fan/Gas 6.
2 Peel and deseed the butternut squash and cut it into small cubes. Place on a baking tray with the sliced onion, drizzle with olive oil, season with salt and pepper and roast for 30 mins, or until soft. After 20 mins, add the rosemary and sage.
3 Transfer to a bowl and, when cool, stir in the goat’s cheese and set aside. Place the peppers, whole, on a separate baking sheet and cook for 30 mins or until the skin blackens. Allow to cool before peeling the skin, deseeding and cutting into slices. Allow to drain in a sieve until ready to assemble. Heat a frying pan with a little olive oil and add the sliced courgette. You may need to do this in batches. Cook each side until brown, then transfer to a plate and set aside.
4 In the same pan, add the spinach, allow to wilt in the heat for 2-3 mins, transfer to a colander and, when cool enough to handle, squeeze out the excess moisture. Chop up and place in a large bowl. Add the ricotta, sprinkle in the nutmeg, season with salt and pepper and stir to combine. Set aside.
5 Grease a 20cm spring-form tin. Lightly flour a surface and roll out two thirds of the pastry to cover the base and tin sides. Carefully press into the tin leaving some overhang, then trim the rest. With the remaining pastry, roll out a circle large enough to cover the top of the tin and set aside. Spread the base with the spinach mix, followed by the pepper slices, then a layer of courgettes and finally the butternut squash mix. Add the pastry top, crimp the edges to seal the pie and make a hole in the top for the steam to escape.
6 Brush the top with the beaten egg and bake for 50 mins or until the top is golden brown. Leave to cool completely before removing from the tin. Slice to serve. Cook’s note: This pie is good hot or cold. so, it’s great for a picnic. It can be made the day before, simply keep in the fridge until ready to serve.
You can find the rest of the outdoor recipes in this menu in our April issue, available in shops now or from our online shop.
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More from our April issue…
More outdoor recipes for Spring…
Photograph: Kirstie Young
Make | a hand-me-down recipe book
Making a culinary heirloom is so easy and will give you much joy in making it, too
In our April issue, there’s a lovely feature by Lia Leendertz all about a recipe book she inherited from a relative. You can find some of the recipes from ‘Ellen’s Cookbook’ in the feature, including a blancmange with strawberries, egg flip and Abernethy biscuits. If you’re inspired to create a recipe book of your own to one day bequeath to future generations, here’s how.
1. Gather all your favourite recipes and ask members of your family what their favourite ones are too so it’s filled with memories as well as tasty treats.
2. Split them into categories – starters, snacks, mains, pudding etc. If you’ve got far too many , consider a theme, such as Italian dishes or vegetarian cooking, and create a few cookbooks instead.
3. Decide on your layout. What measurements will you use? How many people does it serve? How long does it take to prepare? How long will it keep? How do you store it?
4. Add notes of all the little tricks and tips you use when making them. Add personal memories about the times you served them up and the reactions they received. These little stories and additions are what make the books personal and a real treasure to pass on.
5. Get the picture – Think about adding photos of each dish so you remember how you presented them. It’s also a great excuse to get cooking so you can take a snap and scoff your favourite food.
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Recipe | raspberry macarons with lady grey tea
Photography: Isobel Wield
Is there a finer pairing than tea and cake? Tea and macarons, perhaps
Named in honour of Mary Elizabeth Grey, the wife of the original Earl Grey, Lady Grey is a black tea scented with oil of bergamot as well as lemon and orange oils. Invented in the 1990s, it is great served alongside these moreish raspberry macarons.
Makes about 30
220g icing sugar
160g ground almonds
4 large egg whites
A pinch of salt
95g caster sugar
Red food colouring gel
200g high fruit content raspberry jam
How to make
1 Line 2 or 3 baking sheets with baking parchment and draw 4cm circles (spaced a little apart) as templates so that all the macarons come out the same size.
2 Blitz the icing sugar and almonds in a food processor until very fine, then push the mixture through a fine meshed sieve. Set aside.
3 Whisk the egg whites and salt together until stiff and glossy. Add the sugar, about a third at a time, beating each time until the eggs are stiff and glossy and all the sugar has been incorporated.
4 Carefully, but thoroughly, fold the almond mixture into the egg whites, until fully incorporated but still light. Fold in enough food colouring to achieve the desired pink colour.
5 Spoon the mixture into a large piping bag and pipe circles onto the parchment, following the circles you drew earlier.
6 When all the macarons have been piped, take hold of the baking sheet and tap it firmly on the work surface 2 or 3 times to knock out any air bubbles.
7 Preheat the oven to 140C/120C Fan/Gas 1-2 and leave the baking sheets to stand for 30 mins.
8 Bake the macarons for about 15 minutes, until the shells are crisp and they have grown little ‘feet’ underneath. Remove them from the oven and set aside to cool. Once completely cool, sandwich with the raspberry jam and serve. For one pot of tea Use 5 tsp of Lady Grey tea and allow to brew for 5 minutes. Serve with a slice of lemon.
This recipe is taken from Tea & Cake by Liz Franklin (Ryland, Peters & Small). Photography: Isobel Wield. It’s one of several tea and cake pairings we have featured in our April issue.
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More our April issue…
More cake for you…
Illustration: Zuza Misko
Romantic introverts | the newt
Why newts don’t do the dating scene
Newts are fascinating creatures and, if you’re lucky, now’s the time you might spot one in a pond, or hanging about among the weeds. In our April issue we have a feature in praise of the newt - we think they’re a bit magical.
But, in their romantic lives, at least, they’re rather backward in coming forward. The smooth newt (the most common type of newt in Britain) is nocturnal, though not much of a party animal. During daylight hours they hide under stones or in compost heaps, which you wouldn’t think appeals to any newts of the opposite sex looking for love. But there it is. We can’t all be gregarious socialites. In fact, they hibernate between October and March so are out of circulation entirely for almost half the year. You’d think they’d relish the opportunity of some daylight during British Summer Time, really.
But it’s at around this time that the males do start to show a little romantic interest. Being rather unpractised at enticing the fairer sex, they eschew boxes of Terry’s All Gold and bunches of carnations and go straight for the kill, wafting secretions from their glands towards lady newts to entice them their way. Paco Rabanne Pour Homme this stuff is not, unfortunately.
Indeed, no one gets too close to anyone during smooth newt mating season. When Barry White and Candles Night arrives, the male newt simply drops off a packet of sperm near the female, which she collects at her leisure. Not even a peck on the cheek for her trouble. A week or so later, without further ceremony, she lays around 300 eggs on broad-leaved aquatic plants somewhere near her gaff. And that’s that. The romantic life of a smooth newt. Maybe if he were a bit more smooth he’d see a bit more romantic action.
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More from our April issue…
More magical creatures…
Make | Rhubarb leaf stepping stones
Turn over a new leaf with this simple project for your garden
You will need:
One rhubarb leaf per stone
Chicken wire, cut to just under the size of each leaf
Plastic sheeting
Sunflower/olive oil spray
Ready-mix concrete Trowel
How to make
1 Put down your plastic sheeting and lay your leaves on top, with veins facing upwards. Spray on a layer of oil.
2 Prepare your concrete mix, and smooth on a layer of concrete, to around 3 cm. Tap carefully to get rid of air bubbles.
3 Lay a piece of chicken wire on top for strength, then cover with another concrete layer of about the same depth. Tap and smooth edges with your trowel.
4 Cover with plastic, and leave to dry out overnight.
5 Spray with water to remove the leaf. Over the next week, spray regularly until the concrete is hard enough to take a person’s weight.
You’ll find more ideas for intriguing things to make, do and just know in our regular Miscellany pages.
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More from our April issue…
More miscellaneous fun…
Photography: David Loftus
Recipe | nettle soup
Serves 6
Knob of butter
1 onion, diced
2 celery sticks, diced
3 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
2 bay leaves
2 large potatoes, peeled and sliced
1½ ltr vegetable stock
1 handful of spinach
3-4 handfuls of young nettles, well washed
Vegetable oil, for deep-frying
Crème fraîche, to serve
Toasted seeds, to serve
1 Melt the butter in a large saucepan, then add the onion, celery, garlic and bay leaves and sweat down for a couple of mins.
2 Add the potatoes and stock and simmer for 30 mins until the potatoes are cooked through.
3 Add the spinach and most of the nettles (saving a handful for deep frying later), then return the soup to the boil and remove from the heat. Allow to cool for a few mins before transferring to a blender. Whizz the soup until smooth, and season with salt and pepper to taste.
4 Pour a couple of centimetres of vegetable oil into a small, heavybased saucepan. Heat the oil over a medium heat until a small cube of bread dropped into it turns golden in about 15 secs (about 180C on a cooking thermometer). Deep-fry the reserved nettle leaves until they are dark green and just crisp, being careful to shield your eyes as the hot oil can spit with some ferocity.
5 Drain on kitchen paper, then drop into the soup with a drizzle of crème fraîche and some toasted seeds.
Taken from Giffords Circus Cookbook: Recipes & Stories from a Magical Circus Restaurant by Nell Gifford & Ols Halas (Quadrille). Photography: David Loftus
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More foraging fun…
Art tours | virtually Vermeer
We hope you liked the free gift in our April issue, an Old Master for every reader. Vermeer’s The Milk Maid hangs in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and is one of the museum’s biggest attractions.
In these strange times, however, when we can’t just hop on a plane or train, art has so much to offer us from our own homes. In our April issue, art historian Susie Hodge, author of The Art Puzzle Book (White Lion) talks us through appreciating art slowly. We hope you’ll find ten minutes to spend with your own personal Vermeer at some point, getting to know it better before you hang it on a wall or perch it on a mantel somewhere.
And if you’re inspired to spend more time with art from home, you might like to visit a Vermeer virtually, or an O’Keefe online, or perhaps even a Van Gogh on Google.
You can visit the Rijksmuseum online where you can choose to explore particular artists, or browse by category, from still lifes and portraits to biblical scenes and landscapes, getting up close enough to see every brushstroke. Don’t forget to drop in on The Milkmaid.
Fancy a meander among the Monets? Pop down to the Musee d’Orsay and have a virtual wander through this beautiful building on the banks of the Seine, in the former Orsay Railway Station.
Or, if you like a more hi-tech approach, nip into the Met in New York, and try out the Met 360 Project, a series of six videos filmed to allow you to view it in 360 degrees. If you view it on your phone you can simply raise your phone to look up to the ceiling or drop it downwards to see what’s beneath you. You can stand in the galleries alone for an ‘after hours’ view or soar above the gallery’s cloisters for a bird’s eye view.
Sometimes you just need to look at something from a different perspective.
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More art for art’s sake…
Playlist | Songs about birds
Hoppin’ and a-boppin’ and singing his song.
Listen at thesimplethings.co.uk/blog/birdsplaylist
More of our playlists…
More from our April issue…
Competition | win a pair of barstools
These beautiful stools from Cord Industries would look great in any kitchen
Handmade in Cornwall, these elegant hairpin leg barstools from Cord Industries feature a timeless design that would complement any kitchen counter. Available in a variety of wood options, and with over 200 leg colours to choose from, it’s clear to see why they’re so popular throughout the world. Craftsman David Jones uses timber and solid steel to create robust, made-to-last furniture that stands the test of time.
And now one lucky reader of The Simple Things can win this pair of 65cm-high hairpin-leg barstools, with ash seats and ‘Old English White’ legs, each worth £220.
How to enter
For your chance to win this pair of stunning hairpin-leg barstools, click below and answer the following question by the closing date of 6 May 2020.
Q. How many leg colours do Cord’s hairpin leg barstools come in?
Simple Things reader discount
To enjoy 15% off all purchases, plus free worldwide shipping, visit cordindustries.co.uk and quote KEEPITSIMPLE.
Terms and conditions
This competition closes at 11.59pm on 6 May 2020. The winner will be selected at random from all correct entries received and notified soon after. The winner cannot transfer the prize or swap for cash. Details of our full terms are on page 127 and online at icebergpress.co.uk/comprules
Competition | win tickets to the Handmade Festival
Get hands on at Kirstie Allsop’s crafty event this September
Back for its seventh successful year, Kirstie Allsopp’s The Handmade Festival returns later this year (11-13 September 2020) showcasing all things creative at Evolution London, Battersea Park. More than 300 passionate exhibitors are providing over 150 demonstrations, talks and skills workshops on everything from baking and upcycling to sewing, wellbeing, and even pottery. Plus the Shopping Villages and Artisan Market Place, where you can discover new makers and stock up on gifts and supplies to enjoy at home.
For further information, visit thehandmadefestival.com. Two lucky readers of The Simple Things can win a pair of VIP tickets, worth £95 each. The package includes entry to two skills workshops and a creative talk, lunch, drinks, plus an exclusive Q&A session with the host of the day.
How to enter
For your chance to win one of two pairs of VIP tickets to this year’s Handmade Festival (on your choice of date), click below and answer the following question by the closing date of 6 May 2020.
Q. How many exhibitors will be at the Handmade Festival?
Terms & conditions
The competition closes at 11.59pm on 6 May 2020. 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 on page 127 and online at icebergpress.co.uk/comprules
Photography: Alamy
Why we love a secret garden
Come through the gate with us into a wonderful, walled world
Wouldn’t we all love a walled garden? Who can honestly say they’ve not wandered through the pretty paths of a walled garden in a stately home, between manicured flower beds and pleached fruit trees and pretended just for a few seconds that they are lady of the manor, taking their crinoline out for an airing on a turn round the estate?
Something about their secluded nature makes them just a little bit magical. It’s little wonder many a novel and film features a walled garden, symbolic of the fertile ground hidden inside the walls of our mind, the wonder of a secret well kept, the idea that behind any ordinary brick wall one might find something fantastical…
One of our favourite fictional walled gardens would have to be in Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden. “It was the sweetest, most mysterious-looking place any one could imagine. The high walls which shut it in were covered with the leafless stems of climbing roses which were so thick that they were matted together.” But the sweetest thing about it for Mary Lennox is the chance to learn to tame the garden and to grow within its walls. The garden, abandoned for a decade, (note that orphan, Mary, unwanted and then left by her own parents, is also ten years old) is an allegory for Mary’s spiritual self. Inside the brick walls of abandoned garden are bulbs waiting to shoot and then bloom. And inside cold, self-centred Mary Lennox is all sorts of good just waiting to be nurtured into growth.
The Secret Garden is considered a classic British children’s book, but the interesting thing about it is that it was written neither as a book, nor for children. The story was first published, serialised, in an adult magazine. It wasn’t until 1911 that it was published in its entirety as a book, and then it was marketed to both adults and children simultaneously, in much the same way as the Harry Potter books or Philip Pullman’s Lyra trilogy were decades later.
In its time, The Secret Garden was a bit of a damp squib among Frances Hodgson Burnett’s far more successful novels, such as A Little Princess and Little Lord Fauntleroy. What probably saved it from obscurity was a sudden adult interest in the studying of children’s fiction at the time and that marketing of it as a book for adults.
It’s a strange thing that we adults, who hold all the cards really where children’s fiction is concerned, spotting authors, paying illustrators, devising budgets for the marketing of all these books, are so reticent to step forward and enjoy them. We feel, for some reason that we have to leave these books for children, wait to be invited into their secret garden. And every few decades, along comes a book that transcends the barriers between adult and children’s fiction, and the people in suits at the publishing houses feel they have to throw us a bone with an ‘adult version’ cover, or at least one we won’t be embarrassed to be seen reading on the bus. It’s a great shame, really.
We’d like to encourage you to pick up a book that’s ‘too young’ for you this month and read it proudly in public. Who knows? Behind that cover that says ‘not for you’ you might find a long-forgotten secret garden with all sorts of wonders just waiting for your imagination to carefully weed around them, tend to them and watch them grow.
Reading list
If you love a book about gardens, you might like to try (or re-read) one of these:
Tom’s Midnight Garden by Philippa Pearce, 1958
Tom is staying with his aunt and uncle in their flat while his brother recovers from measles. The flat has no garden and quarantined Tom has no playmates, until the clock strikes 13 and the Midnight Garden appears…
The Camomile Lawn, Mary Wesley, 1984
One that really is for the grown-ups. Wesley’s novel about youth, love and loss that begins in the summer before World War Two, has at its centre, the scented camomile lawn in Helena and Richard’s garden by the sea, which epitomises holidays, summer and carefree youth.
The Forgotten Garden, Kate Morton, 2008
An abandoned child, a secret garden, a mystery… If you enjoyed The Secret Garden you’re sure to enjoy this.
If you’d like to read about the history of walled gardens don’t miss Wonder Walls in our May issue, in shops now.
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More from our May issue…
More on children’s books that have inspired us…
Illustration: Nicholas Stevenson – Folio Art
April: a final thought
Please enjoy our back page chalkboard message and a seasonal haiku
We’ve loved all the fun of our Treat issue and we hope you enjoyed the slightly out-of-the-ordinary cover of this issue.
Here’s an April haiku in homage to all that. Do have a go at your own and leave it in the comments below. We send a lovely book to the author of our favourite each month.
April brings showers,
But sweets, treats and flowers, too.
It’s a spring surprise.
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More from the April issue…
More wisdom from our back cover…
Photography: Rachel Whiting
Make: your own clean, green oven gel
Oven looking a little tired and emotional after a big Easter gathering of friends or family? This oven cleaning gel tackles your least favourite job without the caustic fumes of conventional cleaners
Makes 1-oven’s worth
1 tsp xanthan gum
2 tsp glycerine
2 tsp washing-up liquid
300ml just-boiled water
1 tsp salt
5 tbsp soda crystals
1 Put the xanthan gum and glycerine in a large bowl and stir well to combine. Add washing-up liquid and stir again. 2 Put the just-boiled water in a jug and add the salt and soda crystals. Stir until the crystals dissolve. 3 Pour the warm solution into the bowl with the gum mixture and use a hand-held blender to pulse for 1 min, until fully combined. Use immediately.
How to use
1 Switch off your oven at the socket and remove the racks from the inside. Wearing rubber gloves, use a sponge or scrubbing brush to apply the gel liberally to the surfaces of your oven, including the door.
2 Leave the gel on overnight. In the morning, again wearing rubber gloves, use a scrubbing brush to give your oven a thorough clean. If burnt-on spots remain, sprinkle over some bicarbonate of soda to give you extra scouring power.
3 When you’re satisfied, wipe the oven down with a clean, damp cloth, rinsing the cloth in fresh water as necessary. You can use this solution on the oven racks and trays, too, but avoid use on aluminium surfaces.
Recipes taken from Fresh Clean Home by Wendy Graham (Pavilion). Photography: Rachel Whiting.
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More from our April issue…
More kind cleaning ideas…
Photography: Alamy
Game: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Puzzler
Match the children who visited the factory to their grisly, confectionery fates
Here’s a little brainteaser for Easter. Five children won Golden Tickets to visit Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory in Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. But can you match the child to their fate in the plot? Scroll down for the solution.
1 Augustus Gloop
2. Verruca Salt
3. Mike Teavee
4. Violet Beauregarde
5. Charlie Bucket
a) Becomes a giant blueberry
b) Inherits the factory
c) Is declared to be a ‘bad nut’ by the squirrels in the nut room and thrown down a rubbish chute
d) Falls into the chocolate river and is sucked up the pipe into the fudge room’s mixing machine
e) Is shrunk by a miniaturisation machine and then stretched back in the gum stretching room, but leaves the factory 10 feet tall.
In our April issue, our Outing feature is all about chocolate. While you sadly can’t visit Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory yourself, you can visit the Cadbury factory (pictured above) that inspired Dahl. Just don’t go drinking from the chocolate river.
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Answers: 1d; 2c; 3e; 4a; 5b
More from our April issue…
Chocolatey recipes for big kids…
Photography: Catherine Frawley
Cake-off: English vs American muffins
There’s certainly nuffin like a muffin. But which one would win in a duel? We investigate
They say to-may-toe and we say to-mar-toe; they aren’t too embarrassed to ask for a doggy bag for their expensive restaurant dinner and we would rather starve for a month; we have Proper Cheese and they… well, we’ll say no more. But still, that famous ‘special relationship’ endures. Muffins though. We’re never going to agree on those. Ours are a sort of dense bread roll, with flat tops and bottoms, rolled in semolina flour for a crispy edge. Theirs are veritable cakes, often served in a paper case and with toppings and flavours galore.
So, here at The Simple Things, we thought we should settle this once and for all and pit the English muffin against its American counterpart in five categories. En garde!
Texture
Well it’s no competition really. The American muffin is obviously a cake, so springy and soft it may be but there’s nothing like the bite on a toasted English muffin with its crunchy semolina floured surface. At the end of the day it’s a chewier bread-based item and in yeast we trust.
Flavour
We have to hand it to our American friends here, we love the flavour of an English muffin but you can’t chuck handfuls of chocolate, banana or blueberries in an English muffin. Well, you can, but it would be a waste.
Style
Again, the American muffin takes it. Basically it’s a giant cupcake, isn’t it? And we all know how show-offy cupcakes have become over the last two decades. This just goes one better. We sort of stand behind the plucky, salt-of-the-earth English muffin on this one, but it has to be said the English muffin is Woman’s Weekly to the American muffin’s Vogue.
Comfort factor
You’ve come in from a cold walk, you’ve put the kettle on the stove, built a fire and got a blanket and a good book. What are you having with it? It’s not a blueberry muffin is it? It’s a lovely English muffin sliced in half, toasted and slathered with butter. Especially on the black too-toasty bits.
Flexibility
Can you eat an American muffin with either lashings of butter and strawberry jam or under a couple of perky poached eggs, wilted spinach and a huge dollop of Hollandaise sauce? Can you jiggery. The English muffin wins hands down in the flexibility stakes. It makes a fancy breakfast, an easy lunch and a satisfying teatime snack. Also good with mature cheddar, melted or not, prosaic butter and marmite or a hundred other fancy toppings. The English muffin is a flavour vehicle in its infinite variety.
So there we have it. English muffins win. But to show we’re not bad sports, we’ve featured a delicious Rye, Buckwheat and Fruit breakfast muffin in our April issue’s Cake in the House. The recipe is from Nourish Cakes by Marianne Stewart (Quadrille). Photography: Catherine Frawley. The April issue is in shops now.
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More from our April issue…
More bakes to inspire…
Illustration: Mia Charro
What do memories smell like?
Why your nose is the door to nostalgia
Ever sniffed the air in a good bakery and been transported instantly back to sitting by your grandmother’s Aga? Or walked into a primary school and found the smell of utilitarian floors and Dettol made you feel six again?
It’s really more surprising if this hasn’t happened to you, as smell is the most evocative of all our senses. Because our language is not so rich in words to describe smells as it is sights or sounds, they are harder to pinpoint and describe but smells work more efficiently with our brains to evoke memories than anything we see or hear.
The US journal Cerebral Cortex found that the reason for this is that our brains log smells away in the area used for storing long-term memories. In fact, we are able to recall twice as many memories when they are associated with a smell as when they aren’t.
This will be why shops and would-be house vendors bake bread - in hopes of transporting you to a time when you felt safe and at home, hoping your purse will fall open during this reverie. Too bad if your mum only ever bought Hovis and the only time you smelled bread in the oven was at your most-disliked aunt’s house…
And it’s true, smell can evoke very negative memory responses too. The scent of an ex-boyfriend’s brand of aftershave might make you feel heartbroken (or just furious) all over again, 20 years after he dumped you for Carol with the bad perm.
Whether smells take you back to happy times or upsetting ones, we’ve been fascinated this month by what smells evoke strong nostalgic responses in you. The Simple Things staff listed everything from specific brands of shampoo, to cut grass to horse manure among theirs! We’d love you to share yours with us in the comments below, too.
If you’d like to learn more about the power of scent, in our April issue, our ‘Know a Thing or Two’ feature is all about essential oils. It’s in the shops now. Just don’t go down the bakery aisle while you’re there or who knows what you’ll come back with. Freshly baked apple puff, anyone?
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More from our April issue…
More things to make you think…
Illustration: Zuza Misko
How to: speak 'Rabbit'
Want to learn to understand these furry friends a little better? Twitch your nose twice for ‘yes’
Rabbits are creatures of few words, so, in honour of spring, we’ve put together this short guide to interpreting your pet rabbit’s innermost thoughts. The guide works for wild rabbits, too, but we’d be surprised if you got close enough to any wild rabbits to read their body language. Without further ado, here’s a guide to speaking rabbit, or ‘Leporid in Translation’, if you will…
Rabbit: Turns her back on you, or flicks her back legs towards you as she hops away.
English: I’m furious with you. What you’re seeing here is the rabbity hump. Be afraid.
Rabbit: Clicks her teeth.
English: I’m happy. What? You don’t click your teeth when you’re happy?
Rabbit: Grunts.
English: Leave me alone. I want some me-time.
Rabbit: Throws herself on her side.
English: I might look like I’ve fainted, in fact I’m just so chill I’m horizontal.
Rabbit: Pokes you with nose.
English: What does a girl have to do to get a nice stroke around here?
Rabbit: Ears flat back to head.
English: All is good in my world.
Rabbit: Ears standing up straight.
English: I’m freaked out. Something here isn’t right. I’ve got a Mr MacGregorish feeling in my waters.
Rabbit: One ear back and one up straight.
English: I’m concerned something is amiss but I’m not sure. I’ll hedge my bets.
Rabbit: Binkies. (Does a little twisty jump in the air).
English: I’m so ecstatic, it’s like all my Carrotmases have come at once.
So now you know. If you want to read more about rabbits and why we think they are magical creatures, buy our April issue, in shops now.
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More Spring Things to inspire…
More from our April issue…
Illustration: Kavel Rafferty
Make: an upcycled hanging tomato planter
Repurpose a plastic bottle and have tomatoes hanging around all summer
This simple project can be done in an hour and you’ll have cherry tomatoes dangling temptingly by the back door ready for salads all summer long. We recommend you make lots and hang them together in bunches. Green plastic bottles look most attractive if you have them but any will do.
You will need:
Used plastic bottles, between two and four litres
Cherry tomato plant seedlings
Masking tape
Hole punch
Knife
Strong twine
Soil
1 Clean your plastic bottles, removing any labels. Carefully cut away the bottom of the bottle.
2 Seal over the jagged edge with masking tape; then, using the hole punch, make four holes in the tape, one on each side of the bottle.
3 With the mouth of the bottle facing down, insert your tomato seedling and carefully work the plant into the mouth. Then spread the root ball out inside the bottle.
4 Fill the bottle three-quarters full with compost.
5 Thread your twine through the holes and tie securely together.
6 Hang somewhere sunny and water really regularly.
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