Jaunt: the Isle of Wight

This is our island in the sun(shine, turning cloudy through the afternoon)

You can take your Canaries and your private Caribbean islands; they’re nice if you just want sun sea and sand. And much as we love some wild wilderness, you can keep your Hebrides and your Orkneys; lovely for a bit of alone time and drama, but a bit, well, unfestive for a jolly holiday.

But the Isle of Wight is hard to beat. As a holiday resort, he island has come in for some criticism in recent years. Perhaps poshos indulge it for Cowes Week, but its seaside proms, amusements and crazy golf courses might be seen as a little infra dig in some circles. We say hurrah to that - more jolly Isle of Wight fun for us, and they’re missing the best of the island.

There can’t be many places that you can visit as a child and return 30-odd years later to find nothing has changed - in a good way. But the island is one of them. In some of the chocolate box villages, you could be walking into the 1950s. It also has some of the best of the UK’s beaches, rolling countryside and top-notch eateries.  And the best thing about it is that wherever you happen to visit that morning, if you tire of it you can simply jump in the car - or on the wonderful train line serviced by ex-London Underground cars dating back to 1938, and rocket across the island to a different venue. No, wait - the very best thing about it is that you get to go on a ferry ride, making it feel like you are truly leaving real life behind and jetting off to foreign climes… and yet it only takes about 45 minutes.

In our April issue our ‘My Neighbourhood’ feature takes us on a tour of the Isle of Wight and it had us all just itching to jump onto a Red Funnel ferry immediately and be pouring coloured sand into glass lighthouses and eating fish and chips by an open fire by lunchtime. So we’ve been thinking about famous fictitious journeys to the Isle of Wight. Here’s our round-up of our favourites.

The couple in ‘When I’m Sixty-Four’ by The Beatles.

In this whimsical imagining of how a relationship would pan out years from the present, the singer hopes: ‘Every summer we can rent a cottage in the Isle of Wight, if it's not too dear… We shall scrimp and save.’ Well. Don’t go in Cowes Week, but off peak, you should be fine. Vera, Chuck and Dave (the grandchildren on their knee) might have to stay behind if it’s school term time, though.
Sadly, The Fab Four never actually crossed the Solent together to play, but we think of the Isle of Wight as a very Beatles place to have a jolly still.

Martha in Julian Barnes’s England England

In the second part of this tripartite novel, Martha is employed by Sir Jack Pitman who wants to turn the Isle of Wight into a huge theme park called England England, which replicates all of the country’s best known historical buildings, sites and people, to save tourists the bother of traipsing around the whole of England itself. Genius.

The films Mrs Brown and Victoria and Abdul

Both were filmed at Osborne House on the island. Perhaps no great surprise since Osborne House was summer home to Queen Victoria for the last 50 years of her reign. But she had a lovely time apparently. Loved the crazy gold at Shanklin.

Day of the Triffids

Saving our favourite IOW appearance for last… Day of the Triffids. In the John Wyndham 1950s Sci-Fi novel, the characters flee the mainland and set up a new colony on the island, safe from the ravages of the giant man-eating plants. The island is actually a real-life safe haven for unusual flora and fauna today, from the red squirrel and Granville Fritillary butterfly to narrow-leaved lungwort and Early Gentian. Just don’t pick the flowers - they might bite back!

For more on the Isle of Wight buy our April issue, in shops now.

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Recipe: Ploughman's scones

Cheesy scones. With cheese… What? This is fine.

We’re big fans of a Ploughman’s Lunch here at The Simple Things. And, while you might think the story of The Ploughman’s would be something of a pastoral, in fact it’s something more prosaic altogether.

Of course, farming types have been slinging a cloth filled with bread, a hunk of cheese and an apple in their bags for centuries. But it was The Cheese Bureau which first germinated the idea. The Bureau wrote in its monthly bulletin in 1956 that it “exists for the admirable purpose of popularising cheese and, as a corollary, the public house lunch of bread, beer, cheese and pickle. This traditional combination was broken by rationing; the Cheese Bureau hopes, by demonstrating the natural affinity of the two parties, to effect a remarriage”. To be honest, we’re just thrilled to hear there is such a thing as The Cheese Bureau and we’re wondering if we can arrange some work experience with them… We digress.

The Cheese Bureau clearly made sterling efforts to put the component part of a Ploughman’s back on the pub table. But it was The Milk Marketing Board which picked up the idea in the 1960s and ran with it, coining the phrase ‘Ploughman’s Lunch’ to describe this combination of bread, cheese, apple (and, one hopes, a huge brown pickled onion and a stick of crunchy celery). The Ploughman’s Lunch was hoped to boost the sale of cheese, particularly through pubs and it worked a treat. We’re still eating Ploughman’s Lunches with gusto half a century later.

So, in the spirit of entrepeneurship, in our April issue’s Gathering, we have this jolly little recipe for Ploughman’s Scones. We recommend you serve them stuffed with cheese and chutney alongside an apple and a pickled onion or two.

The Ploughman’s Scones are part of our Any-Time Tea Party feature by Catherine Frawley, which also includes recipes for Hot Cross Bun Loaf, Mini Egg Rocky Road, Mini Victoria Sponges and Marshmallow Pops. Make it for an Easter treat or just, you know, any time. The recipes are in our April issue, which is in the shops now.

Makes 10–12

225g self-raising flour, plus extra to dust

1 tsp baking powder 55g butter, cubed

125g cheddar, grated

60ml milk, plus extra to glaze to serve

Cheddar cheese

Branston pickle

1 Preheat oven to 200C/Fan 180C/ Gas 6 and line a baking sheet with baking parchment.

2 Sift the flour, baking power and a pinch of salt into a bowl. Add the butter and rub with your fingertips until you have a breadcrumb mixture.

3 Gently mix in 100g grated cheese, make a well in the centre, then pour in the milk slowly, mixing until you have a soft but firm dough.

4 Dust the work surface with flour and roll the dough to about 2cm thick. Using a 5cm cutter, cut out your scones, re-rolling and cutting the remaining dough, until it’s all used.

5 Place the scones on the baking tray, brush with milk and sprinkle with the remaining grated cheese. Bake for 12–15 mins or until golden brown. Leave to cool on a rack, then serve with slices of cheddar and pickle.

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March: a final thought

Photography: Catherine Frawley

Please enjoy our back page chalkboard message and a seasonal haiku

Our ‘Seek’ issue has been a veritable romp through spring sights, quirky curiosities and all sorts of magical things that you only spot when you’re really looking. We hope you’ve enjoyed it as much as we have.

Here’s a March 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.

Light, bright mornings and

A breath of bulbs on the air.

Spring is really here.

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British Summer Time: a brief history

When you put your clocks forward this Sunday spare a thought for the man who began it all

Talk of adopting different times in summer has been discussed since ancient times and Benjamin Franklin, one of the founding father’s of the United States even mooted the idea of everyone getting up a bit earlier in summer. Franklin is often credited with being the inventor of daylight saving but in fact, the chap we really have to thank is one William Willett of Chislehurst, Kent.

Willett was out riding his horse early one summer’s morning in Petts Wood, he noticed how many blinds were still down and began mulling the idea of daylight saving.

In 1907 he published a pamphlet called ‘The Waste of Daylight’, in which Willett proposed that all clocks should be moved forward by 20 minutes at 2am each Sunday in April and then back by 20 minutes at 2am each Sunday in September. It’s not a bad idea, and does negate the loss of a large chunk of sleep on ‘move the clocks’ day in Spring. Though we’d be quite sad to lose our extra hour in bed come October, it must be said.

Progress was slower than a watched clock, however, and by the time Willett’s plan was gaining the required support, World War I was on the horizon.

So eventually, it was not until 1916 that the Summer Time Act was passed, introducing British Summer Time as being GMT plus one hour and Dublin Mean Time plus one hour.

Sadly, and rather ironically, this came too late for William Willett who died in early 1915. If only he could have turned the hands of the clocks back just a little more.

Since 2002 the Act has specified the last Sunday in March as the beginning of British Summer Time. We’ll miss the hour in bed but like Willett, we’ll be glad of the extra light evenings. We might even take our horses for a little trot around the village in the semi-light dawn to celebrate.

In our March issue, our regular ‘Analogue’ feature is about a horologist and her love of clocks and watches. The issue is on sale now.

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Five plants for making allotment booze

Advice from the Two Thirsty Gardeners, Richard and Nick on what to grow to stock an allotment pub

In our March issue we have an inspiring feature with two chaps known as The thirsty Gardeners. Here we share their ideas for what to plant for allotment tipples and how best to use it.

NETTLES Harvest a kilo of young nettle leaves and simmer in a large pan of water for 10 minutes. Strain the liquid into a bucket, add 3 cups of demerara sugar, the zest and the juice of 3 lemons, then cover. When cooled, add ale yeast and ferment for 3 days before storing in expandable plastic bottles. It’ll be ready to drink a week after bottling – it tastes like a zingy, herbal ginger beer.

MARROW Hollow out the insides of a large marrow from one end, and stuff it with 2½ cups of demerara sugar, a 3cm piece of ginger, 1 tbsp black treacle and the juice of 1 orange. Add red wine yeast. Stand the marrow upright in a bucket. After 4 weeks, poke a hole in the base of the marrow and collect the liquor. Pour into a fermentation jar, fit an airlock and allow fermentation to finish before bottling (around 2 weeks). You’ll get a rummy brew to impress guests.

BEETROOT To make Eastern European beet kvass, place 500g of washed, peeled and chopped beetroot in a fermenting bucket, along with a scant cup of sugar, the juice and zest of 2 lemons, a toasted slice of rye bread (yes, really) and a pinch of caraway seeds. Add ale yeast and leave to ferment quietly for 4 or 5 days. Strain and store in bottles for 2 weeks to mature. The resulting beverage is mildly alcoholic, with a unique, sour tang.

HORSERADISH Scrub, peel and chop a cupful of horseradish root. Add 15 black peppercorns and a spoonful of honey and pour into a jam jar, with a 70cl bottle of vodka. Let marinate for around 3 days before straining and serving.

ROSEMARY Use a sprig or two to liven up a G&T. A stripped rosemary stalk also makes an ideal cocktail muddler

Read more from the Two Thirsty Gardeners in our March issue, in shops now.

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How to: build a woodland den

Find a likely looking spot with a few decent branches and an afternoon’s fun beckons

1 Find somewhere with plentiful natural debris (dead leaves, pine needles, ferns, bark, grasses). Avoid areas with water or where you can see animal tracks running through.

2 Build facing downwards, using a long branch as a ridge pole. Prop one end into the crook of a tree (or create a support from branches). Slope the pole downwards diagonally, propping the other end onto a stone.

3 Add ‘rib’ branches coming off your ridge pole. Use twigs to create a lattice. Don’t forget to leave a way in.

4 Layer inside with your debris (the driest and softest stuff) – leaving enough space to just be able to lay inside. If you twist handfuls of bracken before placing them they’ll have more staying power.

5 Cover outer framework with more layers of natural debris, until at least 60cm thick.

6 Once you’re inside, fill the doorway by pulling in more debris. Sleep well!

This how to was featured in this month’s March miscellany. The issue is on sale now if you’d like to read more.

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Competition | Win a boating holiday worth £1,000

All aboard for your chance to win a luxury boating escape courtesy of ABC Boat Hire

How much do you know about Britain’s canals? Boating holidays bring a whole new perspective to the UK countryside, giving you access to waterside towns and villages, a quieter way to travel and a whole lot of wildlife along the way. A real departure from everyday life, it can feel like a big deal, but actually, with ABC Boat Hire, you can dip your toe in with a short boating break. The boating holiday experts offer everything from three-night to two-week getaways.

Exploring the UK’s best inland waterways, adopting a slower pace of life and relishing the adventure that comes with making a boat your home for a few days, a boating holiday is an idea worth getting on board with. All ABC boats come with comfortable berths and modern amenties – even on-board wifi!

With almost 200 boats, 16 start points and over 1,500 miles of waterways to explore, it’s time to start planning your best holiday yet.

YOUR CHANCE TO WIN

Enter this month’s competition and you could win a short break with ABC Boat Hire. You can pick your route, from selected start bases in England or Wales, and bring along up to seven guests on your eight-berth boat. Choose from either a three-night weekend break or four-night escape mid week. It’s a brilliant prize worth up to £1,000. All the cue you need to plan your next adventure…

HOW TO ENTER

To be in with a chance of the prize click below to enter and answer the question: How many start points do ABC Boat Hire have?

Terms & conditions:

The competition closes at 11.59pm on 8 May 2019. A winner will be selected at random from all correct entries received and notified soon afterwards. The prize is a self-drive, self-catering canal boat holiday with ABC Boat Hire for up to 8 people. The winner can choose either 3 nights, Friday to Monday, or 4 nights, Monday to Friday, from selected start bases in England or Wales. You can’t swap the prize for cash, and travel to and from your start point is not included.

The prize includes bed linen, towels, fuel and damage waiver, and a breakfast hamper to the value of £30 prior to departure. There must be a minimum crew of two adults (18+) to operate the boat safely. The prize must be taken by 26 October 2019, subject to availability.

More from our April issue…

Sponsored post: Abel & Cole's Crab Spaghetti

Bring coastal cheer to a midweek supper with help from our friends at Abel & Cole

You'll know all about wild, foraged foods if you've leafed through the latest edition of The Simple Things. In fact, if you hold your ear close to Abel & Cole’s wild coastal mix, you just might hear the lapping of the waves. This seasonal selection of freshly-foraged greens are the perfect accompaniment to a crab spaghetti, rustled up in double-quick time.

Quick Crab Spaghetti with Wild Sea Vegetables

This supper is like the seaside on a plate, starring a mix of wild foraged sea veg – including samphire, all gathered specially for us – which go swimmingly with sweet Cornish crab, stirred into a buttery pasta sauce with a pinch of chilli heat.

Ingredients

• 80g wild coastal mix from Abel & Cole

• 2 garlic cloves

• 1 lemon

• A handful of flat leaf parsley, leaves only

• 200g spaghetti

• 45g butter

• A pinch or 2 of dried chilli flakes

• 100g white crab meat

• Freshly ground pepper

• 50g watercress

• 1 tbsp aged balsamic vinegar

Method

1. Put a large pan of water on to boil. Give the sea veg a good wash. Peel and finely chop the garlic cloves. Finely grate the zest from the lemon. Pick the parsley leaves from their stalk and roughly chop them (discard the stalks or keep them to go in your stockpot).

2. When the water in the pan is boiling, add the sea veg. Simmer for 3 mins, then scoop them out of the water and pop them aside in a colander to cool for a min. (See our tip for what to do with each type of veg, once it’s cool enough to handle.) Set the prepped sea veg to one side.

3. Bring the water back to the boil and add the spaghetti. Simmer for 8 mins till the spaghetti is tender but still with some bite.

4. While the spaghetti simmers, put a deep frying pan on a medium heat for 2 mins, then add the butter and swirl it round the pan till it’s melted. Add the garlic and a pinch or 2 of the chilli flakes (they’re hot, so use as large or little a pinch as you like). Fry, stirring, for 30 secs till the garlic is golden.

5. Flake the crab meat into the pan. Crack in a little black pepper and fry, stirring, for 3 mins. Then add the sea veg and the lemon zest to the pan. Fry, stirring for another 2 mins.

6. The spaghetti should be ready by now. Scoop 1 cup of water out of the pan (mind your fingers). Drain the spaghetti, then add it to the frying pan with the crab. Add around 50ml of the pasta water then toss to mix everything together.

7. Divide the crab spaghetti between 2 warm plates. Serve with handfuls of the watercress on the side, drizzled with 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar.

Playlist | Songs to make you smile

DJ: Clare Gogerty Illustration: Anneliese Klos

Listen at thesimplethings.com/blog/makemesmileplaylist

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Five favourite fictional frogs

We take a look at some famous amphibious creatures

1. Jeremy Fisher

The daddy of fictional frogs - Beatrix Potter’s dear little amphibian who wore a read coat (a frog coat presumably) and had a near miss with a trout while catching minnows for a dinner party to which he’d invited his good chums Isaac Newton (a newt) and Mr Alderman Ptolemy Tortoise.

2. Kermit the frog

This muppet must be the most famous of all frogs worldwide. With his endearingly skinny legs and rubbery mouth, he lives a much more ‘Hollywood’ life than most of his fellow fictional frogs. But as he’s often said, it’s not easy being green. He uses his fame to good ends though. Here he is taking the ice bucket challenge [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mmax3yEZX58] in 2014.

3. Frog from ‘Frog and Toad’

Arnold Lobel’s fictional friends, Frog and Toad, enjoy simple adventures together such as flying kites, cleaning their homes and providing short stories for early readers. Lobel’s daughter Adrianne has suggested that Frog and Toad were a little more than friends (now we’re wondering about Jeremy Fisher’s chums, too…) and were in fact the beginning of her father coming out. Lobel himself said they represented different parts of himself (the squatter brown part and the leaner green part, perhaps?)

4. The Frog Prince

The tale dates back to Roman times but the best known version is by The Brothers Grimm and tells the story of a princess whose ball is rescued from a well by a frog on the promise that he can be her constant companion. Against her better judgement she is forced by her father to hold good on her promise, but loses her temper with the frog and hurls him against a wall. Whereupon he turns into a prince and they live happily ever after. Note the lack of a kiss in this story; all that schmaltzy nonsense was added much later.

5. Oi Frog!

A recent entry but this is one frog sure to become a classic. The first in a series of rhyming books by Kes Grey and Jim Field features a bossy cat who tells Frog  he must sit on a log because frogs sit on logs. He can’t sit on a stool (mules sit on stools), he can’t sit on a sofa (gophers sit on sofas) and so on. Frog objects to sitting on a log (“They’re all knobbly and give you splinters in your bottom”) but Frog’s day gets worse when he asks what dogs sit on… (no spoilers here but it’s a heck of an ending).

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More appreciating nature…

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Cake facts

Cakeformation you need to know

Carrot cake -  that unlikely yet winning combination of cake and vegetable. With its natural sugars and ability to bring delicious moistness to any dry ingredients, it’s perhaps not such an unlikely idea at all, but we salute the person who first dug up a carrot and then went renegade with the flour, eggs and sugar.

No one is entirely sure when carrot cake was first invented but food historians think it is likely to be a descendant of carrot puddings, which were eaten in Medieval Europe. By the 16th and 17th centuries, carrot pudding was being served either a savoury side dish or a sweet pudding with an egg custard. This would have been baked inside a pastry tart, like a pumpkin pie,  and served with a sauce. Other versions may have been steamed, more like a plum pudding, and served with icing, so you can see how the carrot pudding edged slowly but surely towards cake.

The exact point at which pudding morphed into cake no one is sure but it was certainly during World War Two that carrot cake as we know it today became popular. As Britain was urged to ‘dig for victory’ carrots were in much more plentiful supply than sugar, which was rationed, and they had the double benefit of being both a sweetener and a bulking agent in a cake. We imagine a slice went down very nicely with a strong cup of tea during a tedious afternoon in an air-raid shelter, too.

In our March issue, we have a recipe for the Chai Carrot Cake with rose and lime icing pictured above from Feasts of Veg (Kyle Books). Recipes & photography by Nina Olsson.

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Question: Why do girls rock at maths

Answer: because of their mothers

If you thought you were rubbish at maths at school then (a) You weren’t - maths, as the subject of our March issue’s ‘wisdom’ feature, Hannah Fry, says is hard for everyone. Mathematicians just stick with it because they know it’s worth it. And (b) If you still think you were rubbish at maths, for goodness’ sake don’t tell any of the young women in your acquaintance.

Educators have long held that telling children that their elders and betters were bad at maths is bad for their mathematical confidence, but it’s now becoming increasingly clear that girls feel they are somehow ‘not the best’ at maths.

So to put us all right. enter, stage right, Ada Lovelace, mathematician extraordinaire, And what, you may well ask, led to this very clever young lady’s amazing work in the fields of science and maths. Why, it was clearly her dear old mum.

Ada was the daughter of Lord Byron and Anabella Milbanke. You might think any wife of Lord Byron’s would be a poetic, flimsy, fainting sort of lady. You would be wrong. Milbanke’s great love was mathematics. And she was darned if her husband’s mimsy ways with poesie were going to bend her daughter’s mind.

From the age of four, the young Ada was tutored in maths and science, which would have been highly unusual for a girl at the time. Ada designed wonderful boats and flight machines, studied the anatomy of birds and the science of materials and later moved on to consider the possibility of powered flight. “I have got a scheme” she wrote to her mother, “to make a thing in the form of a horse with a steam engine in the inside so contrived as to move an immense pair of wings.”

She was married, at 19, to the aristocrat William King, and bore three children. But that was no reason for Ada to hang up her academic ephemera.

Her mentor, Mary Somerville, introduced her to one Charles Babbage, who became a lifelong friend and referred to Ada as ‘the enchantress of numbers’. She, in turn, was enchanted by Babbage’s ‘analytical engine’, the first computer. Babbage asked her to work more with the “machine she understood so well” and she went on to create what we now know to be the first computer programmes.

Thank heavens her mother never told her she was rubbish at maths!

Would you like to learn more?

You can read the full interview with mathematician Hannah Fry in our March issue. And if you’d like to read more about Ada Lovelace herself, you might like Little People, Big Dreams: Ada Lovelace by Isabel Sanchez Vegara. Illustrations by Zafouko Yamamoto (Quarto).

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Competition: Win a design commission from Bloom & Wild worth £2,500

SPONSORED POST

Unlock your creativity by designing an ‘Outside the Box’ Bloom &  Wild letterbox this March

Bloom & Wild are calling all creatives who want to join their high-profile packaging  portfolio to submit their designs for the brand’s well-loved letterbox (see images). The chosen  winner will receive a commission of £2,500 and have their box seen by thousands of  Bloom & Wild’s customers. 

Over the years, Bloom & Wild have collaborated with brands and designers to  create beautiful boxes for their bestselling letterbox flowers. Some of the big brands they have worked with include​ Liberty London, Boden, Mother of Pearl and Peggy & Kate. 

Creativity is at the heart of the brand and they’re excited to begin the search for a  new, up-and-coming designer to create the next pattern for the letterbox.   

The design brief   

This Summer Bloom & Wild is opening the brief to UK designers from any background, at any  stage in their life, who want a chance to design our next letterbox. The theme for our range is ‘Summer Brights’. Featuring vibrant cerise and coral tones,  the flowers across this range are joyful, energetic and bold.

How to enter

Send a mood board via ​Bloom & Wild’s competition page ​that  demonstrates your box-design concept. You can include a rationale to understand  where your ‘Summer Brights’ idea came from plus examples of previous work you  have done to demonstrate your style. 

We’ll ask the winning designer to roll their idea out across the outside and inside of  the box, plus the finer details. For example, the sticker and ribbon around the  flowers’ cellophane and a matching gift card for customers to add at checkout.  

To submit your work head to ​www.bloomandwild.com/outside-the-box​ ​where  you can upload a digital mood board, a scan of your sketchbook or whatever works  for you.    

The prize

We’ll announce the judges’ favourite entries on Monday 8th April 2019. The winner of  this competition will be commissioned to the value of £2,500 by Bloom & Wild to turn their idea into a  box pattern for the July/August ‘Summer Brights’ collection. This also includes an original piece of design for the box outer and inner, plus suggestions for a sticker design and ribbon pattern/colour and a gift card cover  design or designs (at A6 spec) that ties into your theme and can be selected by our  customers at checkout so the packaging sits as a set. 

Closing date

The deadline is midnight on Sunday 31st March 2019 to submit your entry.   Terms and conditions can be found on Bloom & Wild’s competition page.

The rules of Pooh Sticks

Simple and such fun: here’s how to play properly

Pooh Sticks, the game that’s made for anyone who just can’t help but pick up sticks in the forest, and is best played with a big crowd of friends, was originally invented (by Pooh himself, obviously) all alone and using pine cones. But Pooh had such larks dropping pine cones of the bridge in the Hundred Acre Wood and rushing to the other side to watch them come through, he shared it with all his friends.

If you wish to play on the actual bridge Pooh and friends used, you’ll need to head to Ashdown Forest in East Sussex, on which A.A. Milne based the books. The bridge itself is a footbridge which crosses a tributary of the Medway in Posingford Wood. It’s a lovely day out and - pro tip - if you fancy a Little Smackerel Of Something, the nearby village of Hartfield has a cafe named Pooh Corner with cakes a plenty and plenty of Milne memorabilia, too.

Pooh Corner’s owner Mike Ridley wrote a little booklet with the rules of Pooh Sticks in back in 1996 to mark the 70th anniversary of Winnie-the-Pooh. It’s rather charming and we think every spring picnic to somewhere near a river needs a copy of these rules in order to play Pooh Sticks Properly (A.A Milne capitals intended). So here they are:

First, you each select a stick and show it to your fellow competitors. You must agree which stick is which - or whose, as it were.

1. Check which way the stream is flowing. Competitors need to face the stream on the side where it runs in, under the bridge (upstream). Note: If the stream runs out, from under the bridge you are standing on the wrong side! (downstream).

2. Choose someone to be a Starter. This can be either the oldest or the youngest competitor.

3. All the competitors stand side by side facing upstream.

4. Each competitor holds their stick at arms length over the stream. The tall competitors should lower their arms to bring all the sticks to the same height over the stream as the shortest competitor's stick.

5. The starter calls, 'Ready - Steady - Go!" and all the competitors drop their sticks. Note: the stick must not be thrown into the water*.

6. At this point in the game all the players must cross to the downstream side of the bridge. Please take care - young players like to race across. Remember, other people use bridges and some of them have vehicles or horses.

7. Look over the edge of the bridge for the sticks to emerge. The owner of the first Stick to float from under the bridge, is the winner.

Remember: Falling into the water is SAD (Silly And Daft)!

*Eeyore apparently suggests dropping it ‘in a twitchy sort of way’ but we think doing so might risk disqualification.

In our March issue, which is in shops now, our Outing feature, In Search of Spring, looks more closely at Pooh Sticks (and how to win) as well as other days out for those seeking spring.

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Interview: on the couch with Carl Jung

Photography by @coloursofmyday

In our March issue, we’ve looked at mandalas so we thought we’d get to know a little more about one of their most famous fans

TST: Hi Carl <pats couch>. Take a seat and make yourself comfortable. We’ve a few questions for you that might help you achieve a sense of selfhood (more on that later). Let’s get started. Tell us about your childhood.

CJ: I was born on 26 July 1875 in Kesswill in Switzerland. My father, Paul, was a Protestant clergyman but was lapsing by the moment. My mother, Emilie, suffered from very poor mental health, and when I was three, had to leave us to live temporarily in a psychiatric hospital. Now that I mention this, I wonder if perhaps this had some influence on my career as an adult. Ha! Funny the things that come out in therapy, eh? I was alone a lot as a child, having no brothers or sisters, but I wouldn’t say I was lonely. I enjoyed observing the many adults around me and learning from them. In fact, I believe I was always happiest when alone with my own thoughts. I say ‘alone’. Obviously, I always had my sense of self to chat to, as well...

TST: Well, quite. What was your education like?

CJ: I attended my local village school but my father also taught me Latin at home. The village school wasn’t all that if I’m honest. I was a keen student and interested in many aspects of science and the arts. It was expected that I would follow my father into a career in religion. But that hadn’t worked out so well for the old man himself, it seemed pretty clear. So I decided to study medicine and went to Basel University to study in 1895 and in 1902 I received my medical degree from the University of Zurich. Later, I decided to specialise in psychology and went off to study in Paris… Is this all strictly relevant?

TST: No, but it’s nice to have some context. Let’s move on to affairs of the heart…

CJ: I met the great love of my life, Emma Rauschenbach in 1903. We married and had five children together. As well as being my wife, and bringing up my children, she was my scientific co-worker for many years. You could say I kept her pretty busy. We were together until her death in 1955…

TST: Do help yourself to a tissue. They’re on the table. Let’s talk more about your work life. How did you come to be a psychologist?

CJ: While studying in Zurich I worked as an assistant to Eugen Bleuler, who you may now know as one of the pioneers in the study of mental illness. During this time, I and a few others, worked on the ‘association experiment’ which looked at groups of subconscious ideas in the mind (I tend to call the mind ‘the psyche’. It sounds much posher don’t you think?). I digress… The unconscious associations or ‘complexes’ can bring about anxiety or other inappropriate emotions. Around this time, I read Sigmund Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams which confirmed all my beliefs on complexes. Sigmund, it must be said, had a filthy mind and thought everyone was subconsciously thinking about sex most of the time. Lord! You could barely peel a banana without the man having something to say about it. I was more interested in mysticism and ‘higher things’. But that didn’t stop us becoming firm friends. For a while.

TST: So the friendship ended badly?

CJ: It did. One of my greatest sadnesses. Things were so rosy when we met in 1907. It was widely thought that I would continue Siggy’s work when he died (he was older than me, as well as more filthy-minded, you know). But it was not to be. Our temperaments and beliefs were too different. When I published Psychology of the Unconscious in 1912, Siggy took the right hump. I had deigned to disagree with some of his dearest beliefs and principles. The friendship limped on for a while but he shut me out of his in-crowd. It was no real loss to me, professionally. I’ve always worked better alone. And anyway, I was sick of his disgusting double-entendres. It was like living with Benny Hill.

TST: So where did life take you after Freud?

I launched myself into some deep self-analysis, hoping to discover my ‘true self’. I lived for a while among primitive tribes, everywhere from Mexico to Kenya, and travelled the world, studying various belief systems in hopes of discovering more about the archetypal patterns that inform the self. I brought back with me many fine ideas, one of which was that of using the mandala to discover one’s selfhood. If I’d known the darn things would be all over Instagram one day, I might have left them where they were. Still, I’m pleased to see their popularity has brought so many people a little peace in a busy world.

If you’re interested in mandalas, and would perhaps like to create one of your own, pick up a copy of our March issue, in shops now.

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More things to make you think…

More from our March issue…

Brunch: a potted history

How to really make a meal of it…

As we sit over French toast, fruit salad, yoghurt, pastries and fancy eggs of a Saturday morning, we often find ourselves thinking ‘Brunch is a genius idea. Who thought of that?’ Well, we’ll tell you…

It was the English writer, Guy Beringer, who, well acquainted with the weekend hangover, decided Saturdays and Sundays needed moulding more sympathetically to the average carouser of 1895.

Empathetic to the party-goer who, on being roused late morning, might not wish to partake of a heavy lunch, he instead proposed, in his essay entitled ‘Brunch: a plea’ that we partake of a more hybrid meal that took in some of the light components of breakfast - pastry, tea and the like - alongside more hearty lunch-type fare for those up to it. He even had the bright idea of making cocktails a part of the meal for those who like their dog a little more hairy in the mornings.

He also made clear that it should be a sociable occasion, ideal for dissecting the events of the night before: “Brunch is cheerful, sociable and inciting. It is talk-compelling,” he wrote.

The following year, Punch magazine gave more detail and even differentiated brunch from ‘blunch’, reminding its readers: “The combination-meal, when nearer the usual breakfast hour is ‘brunch’ and when nearer luncheon is ‘blunch. Please don’t forget this.” As if we would!

In our February issue, our ‘Gathering’ feature is a spring weekend brunch. Here’s one of the recipes from the spread, a spring vegetable frittata. For the rest of the menu, buy our March issue, in shops now

Spring frittata

Serves 6

1 tbsp coconut oil

1 onion, finely chopped

1 garlic clove, finely chopped

100g baby spinach

150g frozen peas

8 free range eggs

100ml semi-skimmed milk

Fresh herbs (we used thyme,  basil and sage)

50g wild rocket, to serve

1 Melt the coconut oil in a frying  pan over a medium heat and add the chopped onion and garlic. Fry for 3–4 mins until they soften.

2 Add the spinach (washed and drained) and frozen peas to the pan and stir for 3–4 mins until the spinach is starting to wilt and the vegetables are mixed in with the onion and garlic.

3 Whisk the eggs and milk in a large jug or bowl, and season with salt and pepper to taste. Pour into the frying pan and mix to evenly distribute the vegetables. Sprinkle fresh herbs on top and cook over a medium heat for approx 15 mins, or until you can easily slide a spatula underneath.

4 Heat the grill to a medium heat and place the frying pan under for approx 10 mins, checking at intervals to make sure the top doesn’t burn, until it is a golden colour and the egg is cooked.

5 Leave to cool before covering the frying pan with a large plate and tipping it upside down to release the frittata on to the serving plate. Sprinkle with more fresh herbs and some wild rocket to serve.

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More brunch ideas…

More from our March issue…

February: a final thought

Please enjoy our back page chalkboard message and a seasonal haiku

From overnight bakes to wild walks, to indulging in the art of bathing, we hope you’ve enjoyed our Soothe issue this month. Here’s to lighter, warmer days to come.

We’ve penned a haiku in homage to February. Do share your own below (5, 5, 7 syllables, remember). We’ll send a lovely book to the author of our favourite haku.

Last days of winter,

Only twenty-eight, at least.

Thanks, February.

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More from our February issue…

More of our back cover messages…

Why are cats so darned awkward?

Science explains what the rest of us have long suspected (they can’t help it)

You heard it here first. Cats are simply scientifically awkward. They probably quite enjoy being awkward, let’s be honest, but if they didn’t enjoy it they’d be difficult and annoying anyway. It’s in their genes, you see.

Take that irritating propensity for curling up in your delivery box, or hat, or dainty shoe… Her face might well say ‘stuff you and stuff your dainty shoe (and the horse you both rode in on)’ but in fact the reason they delve into weird nooks and crannies is that small prey often hide in these spots in the wild. It also helps them avoid predators. In the wild, cats are as much hunted as they are hunters.

This is just one of the observations made by Dr Tony Buffington in his Ted Ed video for Ted Talks.

Dr Buffington also explains why cats climb on top of fridges, doors and any other point from which they can lethally scalp you: they’ve naturally evolved to use their muscles and balancing skills to their advantage and, from up high, they have a better view of potential predators and also can spot any potentially tasty lunch more easily. Once that would have been a juicy rodent, these days, it adds a frisson to spotting their bowl of Felix.

But why are they so intent on destroying your best rugs and furniture? Plenty of good reasons actually: sharpening claws, stretching leg muscles… ripping up a rug also alleviates stress, according to Dr Buffington.

So, what’s the scientific explanation for why cats sit at the back door looking outside with pleading eyes, meowing insistently until you open the door… and then just sit there like a rock? Oh that? Yeah, that’s just because they hate you.

If you like your cats awkward you might like the feature in our February issue. We have an extract from
Pet-tecture: Design for Pets (Phaidon Press), a collection of inspiring and surprising homes and play areas for pets of all shapes, sizes, breeds and species.

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More from the February issue…

More pet pleasures…

Try it out: lampshade workshop

Become a master of a new art in a few short hours

There’s something so satisfying about learning a new skill. Especially when you get to take home something really cool at the end of it.

We were thrilled to go along to Joanna Corney of Lume Lighting’s lampshade-making workshop at her pretty Hove studio this weekend and learn some of her trade secrets with a group of The Simple Things readers.

As well as learning the art of ‘rolling the drum’ and how not to get double-sided lamp tape stuch to one’s hair, we also bonded over the pros and cons of slubby fabrics and the divisive nature of pom-pom braid. And we had a very lovely lunch, too.

Everyone created something completely different to take home to delight their families and astound their friends. Here’s Simple Things blog editor Iona Bower’s lampshade in situ.

If you’d like to attend one of Joanna’s courses (she also runs a rather lovely looking fairylights workshop, we may have noticed) you can visit her website or to buy one of her own creations visit the shop. We recommend the courses though. Joanna is hiding some serious baking skills under a bushel. We’re going back for more cake, too.

We’ll be running more workshops in conjunction with makers all over the country. Look out for similar upcoming events in the magazine.

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From our February issue…

More new skills to learn…