Wellbeing | Keep the Ability to Sleep Well

Whether it’s having 20:20 vision or being able to touch your toes, it can come as a shock when the things you’ve always found easy don’t feel quite so effortless any more.

Now we’re living longer, it’s more important than ever that we take steps to protect and maintain the health of our brains and bodies, and it’s more within our control than you might think.

DON’T LOSE SLEEP

You’ve slept through since you were a baby but then stop being able to fall asleep easily and 4am becomes your new wake-up time. Denise Iordache, sleep specialist and therapist at joyspacetherapy. com says, “A primary contributor to change in sleep patterns in middle age is hormone fluctuations. Oestrogen plays a crucial role in regulating sleep patterns and its reduction may lead to disturbances in the sleep/wake cycle.” Throw in hot flushes, night sweats and anxiety and bedtime can start to feel like a nightmare. Production of melatonin, the sleep hormone, also decreases with age and blue light has been shown to affect melatonin levels. Lifestyle circumstances that increase stress levels can also cause sleep disturbance, including career demands, financial worries, care-giving responsibilities and so on. “Mental health factors such as anxiety or depression may become more prevalent during this life stage, further impacting sleep quality,” says Denise.

KEEP GOOD SLEEP HABITS

Establishing a consistent sleep routine by going to bed and waking up at the same time every day, even on weekends, will help. A calming bedtime, free of stimulants, will also signal to the body that it’s time to wind down. Swapping blue light exposure from the TV, iPad and other devices for a mellow yellow lighting from lamps, candles or a fire before bed also helps to increase melatonin and can make you feel sleepy. “Another tailored approach involves mindful stress management,” says Denise. “Deep breathing, meditation, mindfulness practices or gentle yoga before bed promotes a more tranquil transition into sleep.” Spicy foods, caffeine and alcohol can all disrupt sleep. Instead, opt for sleep supportive foods like a warm milky drink, magnesium-rich nuts or melatonin-producing cherries.

This extract was taken from our feature ‘Use It Or Lose It’ by Rebecca Frank from our January issue. You can read more, including how to keep your balance, memory, confidence, sight, strength and flexibility from page 84. The January issue is in shops now, or you can buy it from our online store and have it delivered to your door.

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Tips | Tidal Treasure-Hunting

Winter, particularly after a bit of wild weather, is a great time explore your nearest tideline. When the sea bed has been stirred up, all sorts of treasures are washed up for you to explore, from sea urchins and sea glass to garnets and even coconuts from far shores. Here’s how to make the most of a coastal winter treasure hunt.

Check tide times: The ideal time to visit is 2–3 hours before low tide. The lowest tides, when more of the beach is exposed, coincide with the new and full moon.

Be prepared: Wrap up warm and bring waterproofs. Carry zip-lock bags for your finds – and bacterial hand gel!

Be responsible: Collect natural things sparingly as they provide food and shelter for seashore creatures. There are restrictions on removing pebbles as these prevent coastal erosion.

Give something back: Pick up pieces of plastic on your visit.

Stay safe: Always check the weather forecast. Keep clear of cliffs. Don’t touch jellyfish, as they can sting even when dead.

Thes tidal treasure-hunting tips are taken from our feature, ‘Tidal Treasures’ by Vanessa Wright, in our January issue. Pick up a copy from shops or our online store to read more about exploring your nearest tideline this winter.

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Why We Love | Cosy Crime

When the outside world feels a bit bleak, there’s nothing like escaping into a cosy book and cosy crime is as comforting as it gets

4:50 From Paddington by Agatha Christie (HarperCollins) Crime wouldn’t necessarily be your immediate go-to for a comfort read. But, in their neat solutions to difficult problems, and where a sense of order is reached in a chaotic world, they offer an escape from the messy reality of life. For a gentle whodunit that still offers a satisfying brain tease, Agatha Christie is an excellent choice.

The ‘Miss Marple’ mysteries, featuring Christie’s famous sleuth, have a particularly cosy feel, and 4:50 From Paddington is one of the best. A friend of Miss Marple’s arrives for a visit in a terrible state: on her train from Paddington, she witnessed a woman being strangled in a passing train (this may not sound that comforting, but keep reading!). As no corpse is discovered, the police refuse to investigate, but Miss Marple believes that a crime has been committed. Feeling her age, she asks for help from the young, intelligent Lucy Eyelesbarrow, who wrangles a job as housekeeper at a large country house in the area.

Through their alliance, Miss Marple and Lucy uncover surprising secrets, and arrive at the truth of what happened on that fateful train journey in a particularly satisfying ending.

IF YOU LIKE THIS YOU COULD ALSO TRY: The Unexpected Inheritance Of Inspector Chopra by Vaseem Khan (Mulholland Books). In this Mumbai-based mystery, Inspector Chopra’s retirement is complicated by the arrival of a baby elephant bequeathed to his care and an accidental death that Chopra is convinced is, in fact, murder.

This extract is taken from our feature ‘The Comfort Zone’ from our January issue, with words and photography (above) by Miranda Mills. Turn to page 51 of the issue to rediscover cosy reads from childhood favourites and comic classics to rural escapes and period drams.

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Recipe | Coconut Marmalade Slices

Slice up to have a citrus-coconut piece to hand – works for any time, any place, anywhere.

Makes around 20 slices

You will need:
200g plain flour
25g icing sugar
50g polenta or cornflour
150g butter, cold and diced
1 egg

For the topping:
200g caster sugar
75g ground almonds
110g desiccated coconut
200g butter, softened
Zest of 1 Seville orange
125g polenta or cornflour
2 large eggs
2 heaped tbsp marmalade

1 Make the pastry by putting the flour, icing sugar and polenta (or cornflour) into a large bowl or food processor.

2 Add the diced butter and either rub it in with your fingertips or, if using a food processor, pulse until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add the egg and mix again until the mixture comes together to form a dough.

3 Preheat the oven to 200C/Fan 180C/Gas 6 and grease and line the base and sides of a 23cm x 33cm tin with greaseproof paper.

4 Roll out the pastry and carefully line the tin (if it breaks, just patch it back together with your fingers). Prick all over and bake blind for about 15 mins. Leave to cool while you make the topping. Meanwhile, reduce the oven temperature to 170C/Fan 150C/Gas 3.

5 For the topping, beat together the sugar, almonds, coconut, butter, zest and polenta (or cornflour), then beat in the eggs.

6 Spread a thin layer of marmalade over the pastry base and spoon the topping carefully over the top. Bake for 30 mins, or until golden brown and set. If the bake starts to brown too much during cooking, cover loosely with foil halfway through. Once cool, slice into wedges.

This recipe is taken from our feature ‘That’s My Jam’, which includes several recipes made using marmalade such as Simple Orange Cake With Marmalade and Blood Oranges, Roast Chicken Thighs with Marmalade & Sweet Potato and Marmalade Bread & Butter Pudding. The recipes are by Phillipa Vine and photography by Anna Rubingh.

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Quiz | When Should You Take Your Decs Down?

Photography by Kath Sadler-Smith @hilltopcottagehome

Is it bad luck to take your decorations down before Twelfth Night? Will your neighbours judge you unfairly if your lights remain up into January? We’ve devised a clever and scientific  quiz that tells you when to take your decorations down, based on your personality. 

Q1: What’s the moment that tells you Christmas is here?

A. When I sit down on the shortest day of the year to open all the cards that have been arriving for weeks. I can’t bear them all hanging around for days on end so I save them to enjoy all in one go not long before the big day.

B. It’s when I close down the computer at 5pm on Christmas Eve and go and open the sherry. 

C. That first frost, usually mid-way through December. When I wake up and see a frosty lawn, I know it’s time to get the Carols from King’s CD out to play with my morning tea. 

D. The clocks go back. 

Q2: When do you put your Christmas tree up?

A. The second or third weekend in December. Any earlier and it starts shedding needles everywhere, plus you can’t really dust properly with the tree up so I leave it as late as my family will put up with so I know the place is clean for guests arriving.

B. On Christmas Eve, just in time for the first day of Christmas, of course! Anything before that is Advent and trees should not be up in Advent as far as I am concerned. It’s a bit ‘common’ isn’t it? 

C. December 1st, or the weekend nearest that. I’ll make sure I have loads of greenery and lights up for the whole month, too. I like to embrace the cold and dark of November but once December arrives it’s open season on the twinkly lights and candles!

D. WHICH Christmas tree? Because I do like a real one and that has to last until Christmas Day, so goes up a couple of weeks before. But I have a fake tree in every room and they go up as soon as I put the Halloween things away… 

Q3: What’s your favourite part of Christmas?

A. Waking up on Christmas morning when everything looks clean and sparkly and ready for the day ahead. 

B. The bit in between Christmas and New Year… friends and feasting, mixed in with slow days and quiet walks. 

C. I just love the whole season and marking all the ‘mini’ celebrations as they come and go, from Advent to Yule to Christmas itself and eventually Twelfth Night. 

D. The build up. I can’t start early enough and I just love the slow build of excitement, the carols playing in shops, lights starting to go up and spreading out my shopping and Christmassy outings all through December to make it last. 

Q4: What was your Christmas Dinner like? 

A. Something easy. I don’t believe in making life difficult for oneself. We did a turkey crown this year and pre-prepped veggies. Took half the time, was totally delicious and no one had to slave over the oven for seven hours!

B. I’m afraid I think turkey is a bit of a modern invention, so we had a traditional goose, followed by plum pudding, and very Dickensian it was too!

C. We actually had our main meal on Christmas Eve to take some of the main pressure off the day. We went for a Scandi-style fishy feast with Jansson’s Temptation and Salmon Gravlax. 

D. Well, we’d had turkey when we put the first trees up at Thanksgiving of course. And then we’d had Christmas Beef when the in-laws came for ‘third Christmas’... So by the 25th we all fancied something a bit different and had a three-bird roast. 

Q5: How does January make you feel? 

A. I’m a bit relieved to be ‘back to normal’ to be honest! I’ve cleared the decks, deep-cleaned the house and am enjoying simple food and some quiet weekends. Bliss!

B. We’re in the midst of our end-of-the-season celebrations still. We never take the decorations down until Twelfth Night, and we traditionally Wassail on the 17th so although Christmas is over, there are still lots of special days to mark.

C. While it’s nice to have the house back to normal, I do find January a bit dank and so I always leave up a few simple white lights and bring in plenty of candles to keep that twinkly feeling going a little longer. Soon the snowdrops will be out and the days will feel like they are starting to lengthen again. 

D. I like to hang on to Christmas as long as possible to battle the January blues. I’m afraid my tree is still up - it’s so cheering to see the lights twinkling in the window when I come home from work. Ever since the pandemic, we’ve left our outside lights up all year round to cheer passers by. So for me, January is still Christmas really - it’s all about attitude. 

Mostly As: The eager de-dresser

You should take your decorations down on Boxing Day. All the ‘stuff’ starts to stress you out fairly quickly at Christmas. You’re generally a tidy and organised type and while you love the festive period, the idea of losing important items under piles of paper chains and sweeping up Blue Spruce needles before breakfast each morning starts to make you twitchy a couple of weeks in. If you know that you only have to live with the chaos for a short while, you can throw yourself into it with more gusto, however. Once the big day is out of the way, get busy with the Hoover and bin bags, and enjoy having your space back again. If you want to retain a sense of festivity, you could always bring in some greenery for a Wassailing wreath for January, or add a few candles to mark Twelfth Night, but keep it simple and Low Key.

Mostly Bs: The traditional de-dresser

Take your decorations down on Twelfth Night. Christmas is all about the traditions for you, so why deviate from them when it comes to decorating? Embrace the ‘rules’ and maybe host an Epiphany party the day after the decs come down. Just because Christmas is over, doesn’t mean the fun has to stop.  

Mostly Cs: The romantic de-dresser

You should take your decorations down at Candlemas, which falls on 2 February, the day all the church’s candles for the year are blessed. In pre-Christian times, the similar festival of light, Imbolc, was celebrated at the same time. Either way, this point between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox, as things begin to thaw and the light returns, seems like a meaningful moment to cast off winter and look forward to Spring. It’s a particularly good time for old romantics like you, as it also allows you to hold on to the lights, twinkles and festive greenery of Christmas for just a little longer… at least until you can almost see Spring around the corner.

Mostly Ds: The post-pandemic ‘let’s make the most of it’ de-dresser

You should never take your deccies down. You love Christmas and live with it in your heart all year round. But most of all, you love the pleasure it brings other people. Untraditional it may be, but if your light-up reindeer in the front garden makes children smile on their way to school in June, who are we to say you are wrong? Maybe try toning it down just a little between February and October, just to feel the lights glow a little brighter through Winter. And perhaps take them down for a dusting now and then throughout the year. But otherwise, crack on. Some people only wish it could be Christmas every day. You make it happen. 

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How To | Wassail Well

In our January issue we met some Wassailers and were inspired to give it a go ourselves. The idea behind Wassailing is to bless the trees for the coming year and see off evil spirits that may diminish its crop. But mostly it’s just to have a bit of bonkers British fun in dank January. Here’s how to Wassail well. 

For your Wassail, you will need:

A slice of toast (soaked in cider if you like)

Ribbons in Wassailish colours (green, white and red, generally, but do Wassail as you wish)

Some suitable music. If you happen to be friends with a folk band, that is excellent but a playlist on Spotify will do equally well

A saucepan and wooden spoon

Mulled cider or apple juice (recipes below)

A firepit if you have one

How to Wassail:

1. Get your Wassailing music on while you make your Wassailing mulled cider or apple juice. 

2. Once it’s simmering nicely, head outside with your ribbons and tie them to your intended tree. The point of a Wassail is to thank the trees and to ensure a good harvest for next year by seeing off evil spirits from them. 

3. Ban your saucepan with a wooden spoon around the tree to ‘wake up’ the tree and drive evil spirits away. 

4. Light a fire if you like (a candle in a jar will do) and get your warmed cider out. Pour everyone a cup, then pour one on the roots of the tree, and also soak a piece of toast in some of the cider and place it carefully in the tree’s branches. The idea is that birds will take pieces of the Wassailed toast, be well fed and then hang about in the tree, ridding it of insects during the coming year. 

5. Once warmed and cheered by cider, gather together around the fire (or candle) and sing your Wassail songs. 

A song for your Wassail

This ‘Somerset Wassail’ is fairly easy to get the hang of. If you need help with the tune, try listening to The Wassail Song by John Kirkpatrick on Spotify.

1. Wassail and wassail all over the town
The cup it is white and the ale it is brown
The cup it is made of the good ashen tree
And so is the malt of the best barley

Chorus: For its your wassail and its our wassail
And its joy be to you and a jolly wassail

2. Oh master and missus, are you all within?
Pray open the door and let us come in
O master and missus a-sitting by the fire
Pray think on us poor travelers, a traveling in the mire

Chorus

3. Oh where is the maid with the silver-headed pin
To open the door and let us come in
Oh master and missus, it is our desire
A good loaf and cheese and a toast by the fire

Chorus

4. There was an old man and he had an old cow
And how for to keep her he didn't know how
He built up a barn for to keep his cow warm
And a drop or two of cider will do us no harm

Chorus

5. The girt dog of Langport he burnt his long tail
And this is the night we go singing wassail
O master and missus now we must be gone
God bless all in this house until we do come again

Make Wassail Spiced Cider

A bottle of cider (or apple juice if going non-boozy)

Slices of fruit (eg apples and oranges)

1 star anise

1 cinnamon stick

Brown sugar to taste

a few cloves

A small grating of nutmeg

Pile all the ingredients into a large pan or slow cooker and gently mull, then keep warm until you need it.

In our January issue we met some Wassailers and were inspired to give it a go ourselves. The idea behind Wassailing around Twelfth Night* is to bless the trees for the coming year and see off evil spirits that may diminish its crop. But mostly it’s just to have a bit of bonkers British fun in dank January. Here’s how to Wassail well.

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January | Things to Appreciate

A few things to see this month, and an outing idea to read, too

While the trees are still skeletal, leaving nothing but catkins and the odd seed head, and the skies big, it’s a great chance to spot birds and be able to see them in more detail, while they are unhidden by foliage.

Banish all thoughts of twitchers and musty mackintoshes; birdwatching is ‘having a moment’, so an outing that blows away the cobwebs is just the ticket.

Before you head out you’ll need a birdwatching kit. Think binoculars, a notebook and pencil, and a field guide – Collins Bird Guide is a good buy, or Birda is a free app for your phone. A phone camera is useful to snap any birds you want to identify later. Pack snacks and drinks, too – you don’t want to have to go off in search of a sarnie just as a wood warbler appears.

Finding your local RSPB reserve is a good place to start as they may have their own hides and knowledgeable staff, but you can plough your own furrow location-wise if you prefer. Don’t forget, 26–28 January is the RSPB’s Big Garden Birdwatch (rspb.org.uk) so you’ll have an opportunity to bring birdwatching home and use your new skills from your kitchen window, too.

This outing idea was featured on our Almanac Pages of our January issue, where each month we collate a few seasonal things to note and notice, plan and do. The nature table image above was taken by Alice Tatham of The Wildwood Moth who takes a photograph for our back cover each month, featuring things to appreciate in nature. She also runs workshops on seasonal photography and publishes seasonal journal stories from her home in Dorset.

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