January
Taking time to live well
YARN
Scandi winter suppers • Life lessons from the north • Tunisian orange cake
Mythical landscapes • Healing hugs & hunker-down books • Waxwings
Malted turmeric milk • Moon watching • Hand-knit jumpers & DIY tea cosies
Comfort and cheer
EMBRACE HYGGE WITH TRADITIONAL SCANDINAVIAN FOOD AND DRINKS FOR A WARM AND COSY GET-TOGETHER WITH FRIENDS
Photography & Recipes: CATHERINE FRAWLEY Styling & Location: KAY PRESTNEY
When it’s cold outside, take a leaf from Scandinavian hospitality and enjoy a comforting meal with friends, taking in classic recipes, seasonal traditions and a nice glass (or two) of glögg.*
It’s tapping into customs that go way back: in Norse mythology, welcoming visitors was considered a sacred duty, while the Vikings believed that everyone visiting should be offered food and drink – especially as any stranger could potentially be a visiting god. While pleasing deities may seem like a tall order, it’s about
embracing this spirit of generosity, sharing easy, hearty comfort at a time of year when we need it most. A grazing board is always a simple crowd-pleaser, especially when followed with seasonal salads, Scandi-style pickles and a hearty main of creamy potatoes and fish. There’s a secret to be shared in the warming pudding, not forgetting the glÖgg just waiting to be ladled out. Then slip a few traditional toffees in pockets to cheer the journey home. So, light the candles, don your favourite knitwear, and savour a winter-blues-busting evening that’s packed full of hygge. Skäl! »
* It's 'Glögg' in Swedish, 'Gløgg' in Danish, but tastes
How to do winter well
DANCING IN YOUR PJS, HEALING HUGS AND OTHER JOYFUL WAYS TO HELP LIFT BODY AND SPIRITS
Words: SUZY READING Images: ROSANNA TASKER
Looking after yourself in winter can feel like an uphill struggle. It can be hard to slow down when we’re busy, and prioritising getting enough sleep and rest can make us feel guilty. Establishing healthy habits is tough when energy and mood is low. Given these conditions, we need antidotes to help us harness what our minds and bodies are calling for. Energising activities, joy-giving rituals and time to be slow and reflective can help you to carve this delicate balance and make wintering a positive experience. It’s totally normal to want to snuggle in, to seek warmth and protection from the elements. Don’t fight it, work with it. The key is to seek comfort and occupy your time in ways that make tomorrow easier. Care-giving rituals that use breath and the different senses will help you to self-soothe and rest more deeply, while joyful activities will raise your energy and provide a tonic for mind and body.
TENDER GESTURES
When we receive caring touch, whether given by others or touch that we extend to ourselves, it triggers the release of oxytocin, a hormone that’s known to help us feel safe and calm. Positive touch can reduce our blood pressure and lower our heart rate and, by reducing the release of cortisol, it can support our immune response. Hand on heart Place your hands on your heart, close your eyes and enjoy feeling the warmth of your hands on your heart centre. Notice the beating of your heart and the sensation of your breath moving through your body. Cup your face Gently bring your palms to your chin and curl your fingertips round to meet your temples. Notice how nice it feels to be held: remember, you are deserving of kindness and you can extend tenderness towards yourself. Hands on ears Place your hands gently over
“Just like dancing, you don’t need to be good at singing to reap the benefits”
your ears, close your eyes and allow the outer world to drop away. Enjoy the silence and the absence of stimulation, the sound of your breath and the feeling of containment. Repeat the mantra,“I can be my own safe place.”
Healing hugs Hugs are a beautiful way to create a feel-good hit. During hugs our bodies release oxytocin, serotonin and dopamine, making us feel happier and enhancing feelings of trust and support while reducing feelings of loneliness. Hugs also alleviate pain, reduce signs of illness and protect you from future ailments. And you don’t just benefit from receiving a hug, you benefit from giving one, too.
JOYFUL RITUALS
Play Games are not just good for kids and for Christmas. In winter, dig out your
favourite jigsaws, playing cards, board games, puzzle books and keep them handy for a regular fun dose of lighthearted downtime.
Music When energy is low and you want to receive a mood boost, play your favourite music. Create different playlists for different moods. Bring out your own instruments if you have any and get creating, too. Singing counts and, just like dancing, you don’t need to be good at it to reap the benefits.
Creativity Winter provides us with a beautiful opportunity for creative expression. Try knitting, crocheting, sewing, scrapbooking or baking. If the inclination strikes, challenge yourself with developing a new skill, such as learning a new language or hobby, and feel how this prevents you from stagnating. »
MY CITY CHRISTCHURCH
KATRINA TOO GUIDES US AROUND NEW ZEALAND’S GARDEN CITY. SURROUNDED BY BEAUTIFUL LANDSCAPES, RESIDENTS LOVE THE GREAT OUTDOORS, AND HAVE A STRONG SENSE OF RESILIENCE 1
There’s no better way to get to the heart of a city than through the people who live there. This month we’ve asked food blogger Katrina Too (@moments._w.kat; @chcheats._w.kat) to guide us around her home town. You may feel inspired to visit one day, but for now just sit back and enjoy some armchair travel.
How long have you lived in the city?
I’ve lived here for nine years now. I was born and raised in Hong Kong, however, my father grew up in Christchurch (Ōtautahi )– and his family are still here – so that prompted us to make the move.
What makes your city unique?
Christchurch isn’t a busy city like Auckland, and it attracts people seeking a more relaxed and laid-back lifestyle. The city has a good balance between the convenience of urban amenities and the tranquility of a smaller community. And then there’s the stunning landscapes of the coast and the hills. The slower pace means that people have time for outdoor activities and connecting with nature. However, nature hasn’t always been kind and the city ’s been damaged by earthquakes in the past – in particular, February 2011 when 185 people lost their lives. The Canterbury Earthquake National Memorial now sits along the Avon River (Ōtākaro). Some buildings, such as the Cathedral, are being rebuilt while other parts of the city have gone through large changes. The Margaret Mahy playground, for example, was built to bring play and laughter back to the city. It’s a day people here will never forget, but we’re optimistic.
What’s it like in January?
The days are long and sunny, so there’s time to enjoy the outdoors and the city after work. People head to the park, or go hiking and cycling near Godley Head. Sumner Beach, a short way from the city centre, is also popular with families.
What time of day do you most enjoy and why?
During summer, the golden hour is from 7pm. The temperature is just right, and there’s often a fresh, gentle breeze. The sky is painted in hues of pink, purple and orange, so it’s a great time to go for a walk somewhere with a view. You hear the birds chirping, and can really appreciate the beauty of the city.
Where’s your favourite outdoor space?
Christchurch is known as the ‘Garden City ’ because of its numerous parks. The Christchurch Botanic Gardens are a highlight, while Hagley Park – one of the largest urban parks in the world – has expansive lawns and sports fields, and is a picturesque setting for picnics. The city is close to beautiful beaches, and Port Hills has a network of trails for hiking and biking, with panoramic views of the city, the ocean, and the mountains.
Opposite page: 1 Feelgood landscape, Christchurch’s Cashmere Hills. 2 The Arts Centre fosters creativity and community. This page: 3 Blooming beautiful Hagley Park. 4 Tourists get to take the tram, where every ride comes with a commentary 5 Eyes on the pies – Mrs Denton’s are the best in the city 6 Helping bring fun and laughter back to the city after the 2011 earthquake, the Margaret Mahy playground
Scene SETTING
HILLS AND HOLLOWS, CLIFFS AND CAVES, LOOK TO THE LANDSCAPE TO DISCOVER THE FOLK TALES THEY’VE INSPIRED FOR GENERATIONS
Words: LAURA BROWN
Photography: BRYAN MILLAR WALKER
All around us, folktales can be found. Bobbing below the surface of a serene loch or lurking at the top of a windswept mountain, stories of spirits and spectres endure. Passed down through generations, they connect us to the people of the past, helping us to understand their awe, their fear, their curiosity
Discovering these well-spun yarns brings our surroundings and history to life, and there are plenty out there, if you know what to look for. Water, woodland, mountains and rocky terrain have all been good inspirations for folk tales.* Keep an eye out for anything that’s a peculiar shape or strangely large or small – if it’s caught your eye, it may well have drawn people’s attention in the past. You can also look for landmarks and landscape in areas where devout communities once lived – superstition and religious beliefs both played a big part in inspiring folktales.
Look to the names of places, too. When somewhere belongs to someone (such as Fionn’s Rock and the Devil’s Pulpit), that’s usually a sure-fire sign that there’s a fascinating bit of folklore behind it. And it’s worth translating non-English place names if you don’t speak the language. Their original Welsh, Gaelic, Scots and Irish words often hint, in beautifully lyrical fashion, at intriguing links to local legends. Finally, people love to share their local history, and the shaggier the dog story, the better. The oral tradition of storytelling is alive and well – you just need to ask. A lot can be gleaned over a pub lunch or a slice of cake. So settle down, pour a cup of tea, and join me in my back yard, Scotland, where the scenery and sights are never quite what they seem…
* See more creatures of British folklore on p123.
BEIRA, QUEEN OF WINTER
The appropriately named Loch Awe is Scotland’s longest freshwater loch, and we have Beira, Queen of Winter, to thank for this incredible view. As well as creating mountains and using the wild Corryvreckan whirlpool near Jura as her washing machine, this giantess with blue skin and one eye also made Loch Awe by mistake. One day, after drinking from a well, she forgot to cover it again. The water overflowed and flooded the land, forming this magnificent loch. It is now home to a monster, of course –the Big Beast, who has 12 legs and looks like a gigantic eel.
MORRIS MAJOR
WHETHER IT’S HIS PATTERNS ON OUR WALLS, OR THE REMINDER TO FILL OUR HOMES WITH ONLY WHAT’S BEAUTIFUL OR USEFUL, WILLIAM MORRIS CHANGED HOW WE THINK AND WHAT WE VALUE
Words: FRANCES AMBLER
When William Morris died aged 62, his doctor attributed it to “having done more work than most ten men.”
We know him best through his perennially popular wallpaper and textiles design, but in his lifetime, he also made, grew, wrote, lectured, campaigned, protested, published and imagined…
Described as “tempestuous and exacting company,” his behaviour could fall short of his worthy ideals. But there are many reasons to love William Morris – not only for his handsome papers and helpful maxims – many of which still feel relevant today.
FELLOWSHIP IS HEAVEN
Born into a wealthy family in 1834, Morris was expected to join the clergy. At Oxford University he met Edward Burne-Jones, and it was the start of what would become a long and productive friendship. The pair vowed to begin a “life of art” – not as lone artists, but through creativity with others. His ideas were put into practice at the Red House in Bexleyheath (now in south London), commissioned from Philip Webb, who Morris met working at an architectural practice. Inspired by the medieval buildings that fuelled his imagination, it was to be the home he shared with his wife, Jane. For its decoration, “there were no naturalistic wallpapers and furnishings available on the British high street,” explains Dr Helen Walsh, a curator at York Art Gallery, which is currently hosting The Art Of Wallpaper: Morris & Co. So, Morris and his friends – including Burne-Jones, his wife, Georgiana, artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti and his wife, Elizabeth Siddal – took it upon themselves. They painted walls and furniture, made stained glass and embroideries or, in Webb’s case, designed furniture and glassware.
And, Helen says, “they’d got so much pleasure in producing all these furnishings, textiles, glass, wallpapers and furniture, they decided to go into business.” With Morris at the helm, they started out as Morris, Marshall, Faulkner and Co., later becoming Morris & Co. in 1875. As “the only really artistic firm of the kind,” they aimed to sell their wares – and their taste – to a wider market, particularly the booming middle classes. An Oxford Street store opened in 1877.
THE DETAILS OF DAILY LIFE
Morris designs are instantly recognisable. As his daughter May put it, they become “pieces of pattern so full of life that, as part of the background of childhood or of young married days,” they’re remembered “with gratitude and pleasure.”
Morris’s design output includes more than 50 wallpaper designs, and almost as many printed textiles. In sensibility, however, “they all spring
from the British landscape,” says Helen. “But he didn’t want to just copy nature like a photograph – he wanted to pick out its simple beauty.”
With their intention of being “restful”, his designs differ significantly to over-stuffed Victorian tastes, when several wallpapers might be used across one wall and ceiling. Perhaps unexpectedly, given today’s proliferation of his designs across every kind of surface*, Morris was specific about what pattern should go where. 1883’s Strawberry Thief – inspired by the thrushes around his Oxfordshire home,
(Clockwise from far left)
Two of Morris’ iconic prints, Acanthus and Chrysanthemum; the man behind the maxims, William Morris, c1875; A design for life, Standen House in West Sussex
AN APPREC I AT I O N OF WAXWINGS
When I was washing up one dull midwinter’s day, I wasn’t expecting a ‘wow’ moment. But a quick glance out the window merited a double take.
There, just a few metres away, perched on a branch, was a waxwing: a rare bird I’d long hoped to see. I say ‘perched’, but maybe ‘posed’ was a better description – this bird exuded vibes akin to a flamboyant ’80s popstar, and all but said “Look at me!”
Waxwings are winter visitors to the UK. Sturdy-looking and similar in length to starlings, they’re mainly pinkishbuff in colour, but have a black stripe across the eyes like a mask, a black throat, and a prominent crest. The tail and wings have black and yellow details. Lastly, their upper wing feathers have scarlet tips, from which they get their name, due to the resemblance to sealing wax used for letters. The Roman naturalist Pliny wrote that waxwing’s feathers were thought to “shine at night like fire.” An exaggeration, but they’re certainly striking birds.
My surprise garden visitor turned out not to be alone – I spotted a further half a dozen in a neighbour’s tree (a ‘museum’ of waxwings, to use the collective noun). An hour later it started to snow. It was as if the birds had heralded this and brought the white weather with them. In the past, waxwings were seen as portents of an imminent cold spell – being winter visitors this is a likely correlation – but it’s now thought that it’s the conditions in the areas
they leave, in northern Europe and Scandinavia, that determine their migration behaviour.
The number of waxwings coming to the UK each year varies widely, from hundreds to several thousand. While more likely spotted in the north and east, they’ve been known to appear as far west as Cornwall. A large influx is referred to as an irruption or a waxwing winter, as happened during the winter of 2023/24. This was thought to be due to a shortage of food in Scandinavia, as well as a colder-than-usual autumn.
Waxwings feed on berries and are particularly partial to those found on ornamental trees and shrubs, like those popular in gardens and urban areas. A supermarket car park may not be the typical birdwatching haunt, but is just the kind of place where waxwings congregate to feast on rowan berries or similar. They’re confident birds and seemingly undeterred by human activity, so encounters with them aren’t usually brief. They tend to stay in an area until they’ve decimated the berry supply before moving on.
I saw my local museum a few times over the next week or two – one time working their way through a line of berry-bearing bushes while making quite a commotion with their trilling voices. Which brings us to another, rather negative collective noun for them: an earful. While they can be loud, however, they’re a winter visitor that I’d really love to spot – and hear – again.
Words: SHARON PINNER Illustration: ZUZA MI S KO
F ireside YARNS
SITTING COMFORTABLY? WITH A GOOD BOOK TO HAND YOU CAN SPEND THE DARKER MONTHS ON EPIC ADVENTURES, SOLVING DASTARDLY CRIMES OR PERHAPS TRAVELLING TO SOMEWHERE IN THE SUN – ALL WITHOUT HAVING TO LEAVE YOUR ARMCHAIR, OR MAYBE EVEN YOUR BED
Words: EITHNE FARRY Photography: JOE MCINTYRE
DIFFERENT STROKES
THIS ARTIST HAS TURNED HER LONDON HOME INTO A CANVAS WITH INTRICATE GEOMETRIC PATTERNS, BURSTING WITH COLOUR
Words: KAREN DUNN Photography: JAMES BALSTON
An entry point to experimenting with pattern and colour is, quite literally, your home’s entry point. As you generally pass through a hallway, it’s a great place to try out bold designs
M y place
The corners of our homes that mean the most. This month: CREATIVE SPACES
Compiled by: LIZ BOYD
This little nook is great for diving into so many activities. I wanted a space where creativity and relaxation go hand-in-hand – this has just the right amount of charm to lift my spirits and make it easy for me to settle in and focus. I do vision boarding, journalling and photo editing here and the ‘hello sunshine’ neon sign is a daily reminder to stay cheerful.
Sam Gavrilovic, Corsham, Wiltshire @my.interior.tales
This is the place where all my creative projects begin. When I’m not rushing to meet a deadline, I feel a sense of calm and peace here. It’s my corner of the house, which has all the things I love, and feels full of possibilities. Christine Pym, near Buxton, Staffordshire @christinepym
When I sit creative journalling at my desk, I feel relaxed and comfortable. This corner brings me so much joy, as It allows me to step out of the noisy world for a moment and write down my thoughts.
Having a small dedicated area for quilting feels incredibly luxurious, especially after working on a dining table for many years that I had to share with my four children. When working on my cutting table, I’m incredibly grateful for the creative space in a busy home.
Bec Brennan, Newcastle, Australia @sew.be
“My home studio is a very personal space, I feel cocooned and able to immerse myself in my projects”
My home studio is a very personal space, where I spend most days creating my picture books. I feel cocooned and able to immerse myself in my projects without distractions. There are no roads outside, only a footpath – it’s very quiet as just sheep and walkers pass by. Bliss!
Filipa Nóbrega, Odiham, Hants @littlematildaatelier_art Polly Noakes, Pateley Bridge, North Yorks @polly_noakes_illustration
