Competition | Win a £300 skincare treat

We’ve teamed up with family-run business Q+A to give you the chance to win a year’s skincare supplies

One of the things we love about Q+A products is that they take the guesswork and mystique out of skincare. Every tube, jar or tub comes clearly labelled with a practical checklist so you know exactly which skin type and skincare concern it benefits. Plus there’s handy info on the active ingredients we all want to learn more about.

Formulated with care and in small batches at its family-run site in Norfolk, Q+A focuses on high-quality natural ingredients that are known to give noticeable results – from ginger root to seaweed peptides. The company is proud, too, to consider its environmental impact at every level.

Recently Q+A has launched its natural beauty range with high-street retailer Holland & Barrett. We think it’s a great match in terms of green beauty. Both Q+A and Holland & Barrett place considerable importance on sustainability, sourcing as much as possible within the UK to create new products that will benefit you as much as the earth. This partnership means you’ll now find Q+A at more than 700 UK Holland & Barrett stores.

To celebrate the launch, Q+A is giving away a year’s worth of skincare to three lucky readers. With the entire range of 13 products to choose from, delivered when you need them straight to your door, this is one not to miss. Awarded in the form of a £300 Q+A voucher, the choice on what you spend it on is yours. Opt for staples such as Holland & Barrett’s bestselling Hyaluronic Acid Facial Serum or Collagen Face Cream, or something new like 100% natural Liquorice Lip Oil.

How to win

For your chance to win one of three £300 Q+A vouchers to spend online at qandaskin.com, enter by clicking on the button below by the closing date of 4 November 2020. and answer the following question:

Q. Where are Q+A’s small batch skincare products made?

Terms and conditions

The competition closes at 11.59pm on 4 November 2020. A winner will be selected at random from the correct entries received and notified soon after. The winner cannot transfer the prize or swap it for cash. The voucher can be used only at qandaskin.com. Details of our full terms are on page 127 of the magazine and online at icebergpress.co.uk/comprules

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Nature studies | Fly Agaric Toadstools

Get to know this familiar fungi a little better…

These pretty red toadstools with white spots have graced the pages of many a fairytale and greetings card, but spotting a real one in the wild is pretty special. Here are a few facts you might not know about these magical mushrooms…

1. They are mycorrhizal, meaning they form a mutually beneficial relationship with the tree that hosts them. 

2. They’re most commonly found in forests that are home to birch or pine trees. 

3. Fly Agaric take their name from the fact that they attract and kill flies. They used to be mixed with milk and left out in dishes to kill flies. 

4. The toadstools are also hallucinogenic. One of the effects of eating them is a distortion in one’s perception of size. Lewis Carrol made a nod to this in his depiction of the toadstool in Alice in Wonderland, in which the caterpillar tells Alice that eating from one side of the mushroom will make her grow bigger and the other side will make her grow smaller. 

5. The Fly Agaric often featured on Victorian Christmas cards as a symbol of good luck. 

6. Reports of human deaths from eating Fly Agaric are very rare, but all the same, we would advise against trying it. 

You can find out more about Fly Agaric at The Woodland Trust’s website.

And if you’ve been inspired, why not learn to draw one of these beautiful shrooms yourself, like the ones above? In our October issue we have a drawing workshop by Jennie Maizels, founder of Sketchbook Club. You can find a tutorial on how to draw toadstools and other autumnal things by Jennie on page 22. Jennie has run Sketchbook Club from her home and online for five years. For all the kit you need to get started, including paints, pencils and paper, visit: jenniemaizels.com and head to Jennie Maizels’ Sketchbook Club YouTube Channel for supporting ‘How to’ videos for these projects. You can also follow Jennie on Twitter and Instagram at @jenniemaizels.

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Cake facts | root veg baking

We love a cake. We love root veg. Root veg cake are simply double the joy

We are firm believers in always having a cake in, here at The Simple Things. Our October Cake in the House page has a recipe for this deliciously moreish Beetroot Chocolate Cake from Abel & Cole., who, happily, know a thing or two about root veg, too. You can find the recipe on page 25. Root veg definitely do something magical to a cake, adding both natural sweetness as well as moist texture. Here are a few more root veg that translate well into cake form. 

Parsnips

Always pairs well with apples, as well as smoky syrups such as maple. 

Parsnip and maple syrup cake by Darina Allen

Carrots

All nuts, but particularly walnuts) love a carrot. They pair well with oranges, too. 

Carrot cake with ginger and walnuts by Nigella Lawson

Beetroot

Beetroot’s natural partner is dark chocolate which is an excellent, slightly piquant foil to beetroot’s earthiness. A creamy frosting also does the job beautifully. 

Red Velvet Beetroot Cake by Lakeland

Sweet potatoes

Sweet ingredients like maple syrup and chocolate complement sweet potatoes, as do spices such as cinnamon, cloves and ginger. 

Chocolate and sweet potato loaf cake by Waitrose

Potatoes

Traditionally, potatoes are paired mainly with savoury foods but they’re great at taking on flavours, too, and are a good vehicle for citrus flavours in a cake. 

Gluten free lemon drizzle cake by BBC Food

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Nature | Why Bats do Maternity Leave Best

A bit of female solidarity and a hygge attitude go a long way in the bat world

Cast aside all notions of vampires and haunted houses, bats on mat leave are all about getting cosy with their BFFs and looking after each other, and we’re just a little bit impressed by their initiative.

If you’ve ever sent a man out from under your feet because you just knew you’d get the job done quicker on your own, you might like to know that this is exactly what female bats do when it comes to giving birth. 

During pregnancy, a few bat ladies get together and form a maternity colony. A bit like an antenatal group, but with small flying insects to eat instead of cake, but about the same amount of sympathising about pregnancy aches and pains. Mostly these colonies are made up of fewer than ten bats, but they can be huge; Bracken Cave in Mexico has a maternity colony of around 15 million bats! 

Once a colony is formed, the bat babies (called pups) are born within a few weeks. (The male bats continue to stay out of things - we expect they’re at the pub, patting each other on the back for doing absolutely no hard work in all this at all). The female bats and young live together for the next few weeks to help each other out in the early days of parenthood. Bats usually only have one baby each, but they need to keep themselves warm in order to keep milk production going to feed their pups, so they all snuggle up together to benefit from each other’s warmth. 

After four or five weeks the bats begin to venture out to find solid food for their pups and slowly begin to fly the roost. Who ever said a woman needed a man about the house?

The Bat Conservation Trust has lots of advice on what to do if you think you have bats roosting in your property. They say that female bats in maternity colonies are particularly sensitive and will abandon their pups if disturbed so if you’re doing work in your loft or roof during summer time, it’s especially important to check for bats first. 

Bats are our ‘Magical Creature’ of the month in our October issue, so you can read more about them there. If you’ve ever admired the beautiful illustrations on our Magical Creatures series by Zuza Misko, you might like to know that you can buy them in our shop.

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Make | A Pumpkin Bird Feeder

Make pumpkins less scary and more carey for a variety of garden birds

As well as being delicious to eat at this time of year, pumpkins provide the basis for some simple crafts, too. In our October issue, we have a few fabulous ideas for things to do with pumpkins (other than carve them into scary faces). There are lots more ideas here on our website too. Pumpkin beer keg, anyone?

In the meantime, get started with this really easy-to-pull-off make.

You will need:

Small pumpkin or squash (we used a ‘Red Onion’ squash)
Knife, a spoon and a skewer
2 twigs, each about 12–15cm long
Twine, about 1.5m
Drawing pin
Bird seed

1 Halve the pumpkin horizontally and scoop out the seeds, leaving 2cm of flesh intact.

2 Using a skewer, make two holes, opposite each other and large enough to securely hold the twigs. Stick a twig into each hole.

3 Cut the twine in half. Holding the two pieces together, tie a knot in the centre. You should now have four lengths of twine, joined by a knot.

4 Turn the pumpkin upside down and secure the knot of your twine to the bottom of the pumpkin with a drawing pin. Turn up the right way and adjust the lengths of twine so that the pumpkin sits straight. Knot the four lengths together at the top.

5 Fill the pumpkin with seed and hang it outside for the birds to feast on.

Find the rest of the pumpkin craft ideas on p50 of our October issue.

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Recipe | Warm Blackberry and Almond Overnight Oats

This breakfast is autumn in a bowl and will give you something to get up for on dark mornings

Overnight oats are slow food at their best. Spend a quiet evening making the blackberry compote to warm gently when you need it ,and putting your oats in to soak, and in the morning you’ll be rewarded with a filling breakfast to put a spring in your step all morning. It’s an ideal use for one of your pots of frozen blackberries, but it’s very easy to subsitute other fruit, or a diffiernt nut butter. Get creative and make the recipe your own if you like.

Serves 2

½ large red apple
2 tbsp almond butter

For the blackberry compote:

250g blackberries
1 tbsp maple syrup
1 bay leaf
Squeeze of lemon juice

For the porridge:

100g rolled oats, soaked in 250ml water for at least 30 mins, ideally overnight
250ml unsweetened almond milk
¼ tsp sea salt
1 tsp coconut oil
2 tsp raw cacao powder

1 Make the blackberry compote by heating the blackberries, maple syrup, bay leaf and lemon juice in a small pan with 1 tbsp of water. Once bubbling, remove from the heat and set aside.

2 Put all the porridge ingredients, including the soaking water, in a medium pan set over a medium heat. Stir for 3-4 mins, until the oats start to come together, the coconut oil has melted and the cacao powder has blended in.

3 Grate the apple (reserving a couple of slices to garnish). Spoon the porridge into deep bowls and top each with 1 heaped tbsp of blackberry compote and 1 tbsp of the almond butter. Finish with the grated and sliced apple .

Cook’s note:Soaking grains helps to break down their tough outer layer, making them easier to digest.

This delicious breakfast is just one of the recipes from our October feature Against the Grain by Louise Gorrod, with photography by Emma Croman. It also features recipes for Barley Porridge with Roasted Plums, Yoghurt and Toasted Almonds; Porridge with Caramel Sauce, Apples and Toasted Hazelnuts; Pumpkin Barleyotto with Manchego and Pumpkin Seeds; and Cheesy Rye Gratin with Ale and Mustard. The October issue is in shops now.

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Dogs | Pedigree Chums

A canine companion really does make any house a home.

Sometimes they also make any newspaper a shredded mess, any slipper a pile of rubber shavings and any lovingly prepared dinner for you a fast food takeaway for them. But we’ll not dwell on that. 

In our October issue we feature some fabulous photos of a few beautiful dogs in their beautiful homes, from the book Cool Dogs Cool Homes: Living in Style with Your Dog by Geraldine James (CICO Books). Photography by James Gardine. We’ve featured one of them here just to give you a sneak doggy preview.

All those stylish dogs in their stylish homes got us to wondering which types of stylish dogs are the most popular. So we looked it up. And here is the definitive answer.

In 2019, according to Kennel Club registrations, these were the most popular pedigree breeds:

1. Labrador Retreiver

2. French Bulldog

3. Cocker Spaniel

4. Bulldog

5. English Springer Spaniel

6. Golden Retriever

7. Dachsund

8. German Shepherd

9. Pug

10. Miniature Schnauser

Reader offer

Readers can buy a copy of Cool Dogs Cool Homes for the special price of £15 (RRP £19.99). To order go to rylandpeters.com and use code SIMPLEDOGS at checkout. Offer valid until October 31st 2020.

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Nature | Tree tunnels

Walk through a tree tunnel near you and feel like you’re entering fairyland

Those moments when you walk (or sometimes drive) through a tunnel of trees are a bit special, giving you at once a feeling of being hidden from the world and also transported somewhere magical. Of course you know that at the end of the tunnel the world will be much as it was on the side you entered it, but the strangeness of being cocooned by trees brings, just for a moment, that feeling that anything is possible and at the end of the tunnel might lie an entirely different world. 

Some tree tunnels are partially ‘man’made’, with trees planted in avenues to offer a shady walk in summer and a canopy of silhouetted branches in winter. Others are formed naturally, when a path is formed through trees by either footfall or vehicles and the branches meet in the middle overhead, never able to grow lower than the tallest person who regularly passes through. 

We think a good tree tunnel is a very fine focus for a good autumn walk, so we’ve listed a few of our favourites around Britain and Ireland. We hope you can find one near you. Send us a postcard from Fairyland!

Halnaker, West Sussex

Halnaker (pronounced ‘Ha’nacker’) is just north of Chichester and this tree tunnel walk (pictured above) follows the ancient Roman road, Stane Street. The woodland path has worn down over the years, giving the whole tunnel a circular effect and the look of a Tolkien novel. 

Kilham, East Yorkshire

Immortalised by David Hockney, who painted this tree tunnel in various seasons (they were exhibited at the Royal Academy for some time), this tunnel is between the villages of Langtoft and Kilham. Hockney painted them outside, rather than in his studio, and it’s worth familiarising yourself with the pieces before you visit; you get the feeling of stepping around Hockney himself seated at his easel as you approach.

The Dark Hedges, County Antrim

Created by more than 150 beech trees planted along the Bregagh Road between Armoy and Stanocum by the Stuart family as an entrance to Gracehill Manor, this tunnel is so spooky it’s been featured in films and TV series including Game of Thrones. It’s seriously spooky, with branches that look terrifyingly like they might just reach down and pluck you off the road. 

Laburnum tunnel, Bodnant Garden, Conwy

This 55m-long laburnum arch was planted in 1880 at Bodnant Garden, now owned by the National Trust. It’s believed to be the longest and oldest in Britain and is best visited when the flowers are in full bloom and hanging down into the tunnel at the end of May and the beginning of June. 

Yew Tree Tunnel in Aberglasney Gardens, Camarthenshire

It’s difficult to date yews. Experts originally thought this tunnel to be a thousand years old but in the 1990s dendochronologists (tree-daters to you and I) decided it was probably only a quarter of that age and guess it was planted in the 1700s. It proved enormously popular in the Victorian era. Victorians went mad for yews, apparently. 

Gormanston College Fairytale Tree Tunnel, County Meath

The cathedral-esque curves of this tree tunnel in the grounds of Gormanston College near Dublin makes for a spooky walk with a quiet reverence about it. 

Untamed tree tunnel, Kilsyth, North Lanarkshire

Some of the best tree tunnels are the slightly wild ones you just happen across. Kilsyth has one in the Burnside area, close to the sportsground. As haunted-looking as some of the most famous tree tunnels but a bit rougher round the edges and more ‘real’, this is a joy to find as you turn into it. 

Rhododendron tunnels, Sheringham Park, Norfolk

Paths and tunnels weave through the rhododendrons at Sheringham Park. They’re at their colourful best in Spring and perfect for a game of hide-and-seek, no matter your age. 

Hollow Way, Monksilver, Somerset

Hollow Way is the perfect moniker for this sunken Lane which creates a perfectly round tunnel through the trees. We recommend a stop off at the Notley Arms Inn on the way back to rest weary legs. https://www.notleyarmsinn.co.uk/en-GB

Yew tunnel, Easton Walled Garden, Grantham

Another yew tunnel, but they really do make for the best tunnels. And if it gives you a taste for the labyrinthine, the gardens also have a turf maze to enjoy. Visit in late winter or early spring to enjoy the woodland snowdrops, too. 

Do share your favourite tree tunnels with us in the comments, and turn to page 17 of the October issue to read more about understanding your walks from outdoor guru Tristan Gooley.

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Recipe | Cinnamon Popcorn

In our October issue we have a special ‘Crafternoon’ Gathering feature, with ideas for making an autumnal wreath and a few delicious snacks to fuel your creativity. We think this cinnamon popcorn would be just as good with a Saturday night movie, too. Here’s how to make it…

Makes 1 large bowl

100g popping corn kernels
2 tbsp coconut oil
2 tbsp maple syrup
1 tsp cinnamon

1 Pop your kernels using your preferred method (popcorn machine, microwave or hob).
2 Melt the coconut oil in a small saucepan on the hob, then stir in the maple syrup and cinnamon.
3 Pour the warm liquid over the popcorn, season to taste with salt and stir until thoroughly coated.

You can find this and the rest of the recipes by Kay Prestney and photographed by Cathy Pyle in our October issue on page 8, including Cranberry and Camembert Puffs, Rosemary and Orange Mocktails , Smoked Trout Dip, Spinach Twists and Chocolate Brownies. There are also instructions on how to make your autumnal wreath.

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Playlist | Simple Favourites

To mark our 100th issue, this month’s playlist comprises our favourite songs released since the first issue of The Simple Things, back in October 2012 .

Listen here.

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Competition | Win a £1,000 shopping spree at Garden Trading

Treat your home or garden to a new look for autumn courtesy of Garden Trading

Autumn is here, and with the new season the possibility of new adventures. Particularly welcome after such a challenging and unpredictable year. But there have been silver linings to be found – not least an appreciation of the simple things and a quieter pace of life.

Many have realised that genuine contentment stems from spending time with family and those who matter, and to a certain extent from products made with as much function as style – which is at the core of Garden Trading’s ever-evolving collection. Most of us have spent much more time at home than usual these past few months, and the urge to feather our nests has been strong. With this in mind, we’re giving away a £1,000 voucher to spend online, on Garden Trading’s beautiful range of homewares, all carefully designed to create a space you’ll long to spend more time in. But which would you choose?

The new-season kitchen collection includes enamel and ceramic cookware, baking essentials and heatproof glass storage to help you make the most of home cooking and reduce waste. In the living room, autumnal toned cushions and vases complement rattan-framed mirrors designed to reflect natural light and warmth. Garden Trading has also expanded its collection of pots and planters, with styles to suit all spaces, from low-slung bowls to high-hanging potholders. Meanwhile, the new Linear furniture range majors in modernity and versatility, with sleek consoles and side tables in a range of sizes.

For more inspiration, visit gardentrading.co.uk..

How to enter

Just press the button below and answer the following question:

Q. What is the name of the new furniture range from Garden Trading?

Terms and conditions

The competition closes at 11.59pm on 4 November 2020. A winner will be selected at random from the 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.

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