The_Simple_Things_Oct_2025

Taking time to live well

October

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HUG

Candlelit mornings & chestnut rooibos • Baked pear pies • Sunday bests It’s a dog walker’s life • Bramble baskets • Koromogae clothes swap Keeping a commonplace book • Acorn ink & tawny owls • Jumper blankets

Grape expectations A CHEESE AND WINE EVENING IS AN EASY SELL. BUT MAKE FRIENDS WORK A LITTLE WITH TASTING NOTES TO DISCUSS AND BY PAIRING INTERESTING WINES WITH CHEESY BITES Recipes & styling: KAY PRESTNEY Photography: REBECCA LEWIS

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heese and wine are two of life’s greatest pleasures. Combine them for a relaxed evening with friends where you can taste and rate wines, while nibbling on cheese dishes to suit all tastes – a great way to mark the beginning of autumn.

Create a cosy evening filled with conversation, good wine and more cheese than you can shake a cracker at. Rather than having a cheeseboard, try some of these small dishes alongside well-paired wines. Start with baked halloumi with capers and olives and a crunchy herbed goat’s cheese crostini.

Move on to a vibrant beetroot and blue cheese dish, burrata with courgettes and a savoury cheesecake.

Even the pudding is a celebration of cheese, with roasted nectarines in creamy mascarpone.

Unleash your inner sommelier with paired vino throughout the evening – sniffing and swirling like a pro – and maybe try out some new wines you may not have considered before, including the growing range of non-alcoholic varieties. Cheers! »

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It’s Beaujolais Nouveau Day on 20 November – always the third Thursday in November when all Beaujolais wine bottles are shipped across the world from France. A great excuse to do it all again next month.

GATHERING

The tablecloth won't likely look as pristine by the end of the evening, but it's a small price to pay for learning about wine and eating cheese

Kitchen therapy

FRUITS OF autumn Photography: KYM GRIMSHAW

SPENDING TIME AT HOME COOKING AND BAKING CAN BE A FORM OF SELF-CARE. LOTTIE STOREY INVITES US OVER TO FEED BOTH BODY AND SOUL

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GOOD THINGS TO EAT AND DO

The kitchen isn’t always a place of calm and serenity, as we race to get dinner on the table. But if we try taking things a little slower now and again and lean into its sensory pleasures, we benefit from the kitchen’s inherently calming activities.

The warmth of the oven, the scent of something on the stove and the soothing acts of stirring slowly or kneading and shaping are to be savoured, if we take the time to let them ground us.

Pair your slow cooking with some pencil sketching while the pear pies are in the oven

ADDITIONAL PHOTOGRAPHY: ADOBE STOCK

HEART OF THE HOME October marks the shift into autumn proper.

With winter around the corner it is a slower month – a time to lean into the comfort of familiar routines. Food becomes richer.

Cardamom knots fill the kitchen with spice on slow mornings, while baked pear pies bring warmth and a mellow sweetness that suits dark afternoons. For texture and bite, seed and nut brittle delivers a satisfying snap, delicious with coffee or packed away for walks in the colourful woods. Mushroom risotto with crispy sage is the kind of supper that doesn’t ask for much, just a gradual ladling of stock and a warm plate. Add a turmeric and ginger tonic for a zippy contrast – something to revive the senses if you’re feeling the need for brightness. These are the kinds of meals that suit late autumn’s tone: unfussy, seasonal and quietly nourishing, each one helping to anchor us as the year winds down. » 47

HOME TOUR

Clockwise from right: Heidi, ‘the station wagon’, serves refreshments outside the salon where Kate works; Kate’s beautiful home; Old Knobbley, an 800-yearold English Oak in nearby Furze Hill Woods. “It’s a much-loved landmark, and kids love to climb it – as do adults!” laughs Kate

M I S T L E Y, N O R T H E S S E X

MY NEIGHBOURHOOD LIFE IN MISTLEY – CLOSE TO THE RIVER STOUR AND ON THE ESSEX-SUFFOLK BORDER – TICKS ALL THE BOXES FOR A FAMILY SEEKING THE BEST OF BOTH TOWN AND COUNTRY Words: KAY PRESTNEY Photography: REBECCA LEWIS & CATHY PYLE

Open shelves in the kitchen display Kate’s favourite ceramics, glassware and wooden boards, which she loves to collect and are often used when entertaining friends and family

PAUSE Take a moment with some well-chosen words

Spontaneous Me, Lines 1–7

by Walt Whitman Spontaneous me, Nature, The loving day, the mounting sun, the friend I am happy with, The arm of my friend hanging idly over my shoulder, The hill-side whiten’d with blossoms of the mountain ash, The same late in autumn, the hues of red, yellow, drab, purple, and light and dark green, The rich coverlet of the grass, animals and birds, the private untrimm’d bank, the primitive apples, the pebble-stones, Beautiful dripping fragments, the negligent list of one after another, as I happen to call them to me or think of them.

There’s a free-wheeling ease to the opening stanza of Spontaneous Me by Walt Whitman (1819–92), as the poet and his companion saunter out into the loveliness of an autumnal landscape. There’s a beguiling sense of freedom to their walk, which is echoed in the wildness of the surrounding natural world.

Things to ponder: How does Whitman create a kinship between nature and narrator?

How does he achieve a feeling of movement? How do you imagine the emotional and actual weather? Part of The Complete Poems Of Walt Whitman (Wordsworth Editions)

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GOOD WORK

My living

The dog walker Many of us dream of running our own business. We ask the people who are actually doing it to share some of their insights and inspirations, the reality of the graft and their hard-won wisdom – and why they wouldn’t have it any other way…

Words: JO TINSLEY

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THE SIMPLE THINGS

Long walks & kitchen-table gatherings

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HUG

HUG

Candlelit mornings & chestnut rooibos • Baked pear pies • Sunday bests It’s a dog walker’s life • Bramble baskets • Koromogae clothes swap Keeping a commonplace book • Acorn ink & tawny owls • Jumper blankets

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10/09/2025 13:25

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IMAGE: MARIGOLD WALLPAPER IN ORANGE (WMORRISANDCO.COM)

OCTOBER 2025

October