Old fashioned/simple pleasures that you still enjoy?

[TheQuietDignityOfASandwich]

There are plenty of things that I appreciate about modern life including MN but I’d love to read about some old fashioned ir simple things that you still enjoy.

Perhaps not the best example but the other day I went to a garden centre and I had an egg mayonnaise sandwich on wholemeal bread with a pot of tea and it was lovely. I often find that a lot of cafes put too many ingredients and sauces in their sandwiches so it was nice to have something relatively plain.

Also sitting having a cup of tea and a simple iced bun while listening to a Radio 4 play. And I’ve been watching old one off dramas and mini-series on Youtube. They’re so much slower paced than dramas now but all the more enjoyable for that.

What simple pleasures do you enjoy?

Watching the flames in an open fire.
Washing up in the proper order, as taught at guides, starting with glasses and ending with the greasiest pots and pans.

My little reading treat is re-enjoying certain passages in books.
eg. The first few pages of Georgette Heyer "The Reluctant Widow", Elinor is taken to a ramshackle manor house to start the adventure. It takes me to Sussex (pre1815) every time.
The start of Margery Allingham "Police at the Funeral" Chief Inspector Oates walks from about The Princess Alice to Holborn across the Viaduct in the rain and finds Albert Campion. I have done that walk.
Hint: Follow it on Street View if you don't live in London.
Love some of these ideas.

Opening the curtains in the morning and seeing what the day brings - it could be a sunrise, glorious light and birdsong, gentle rain, autumnal colours, the first frost of the season, it doesn't matter; waking up to snow; going downstairs to make the first cup of tea of the day; seeing the stars on a cold black clear night, going to look at the sea and maybe have a swim, then drying off and having a hot drink to warm up; cracking open a jacket potato and putting cold butter in it; sunday dinner followed by a board game followed by cosying up in front of a real fire, bonus if i have also been for a long walk with a friend beforehand; getting a card in the post; freshly washed sheets; organising cupboards and drawers; having a belly laugh or a hug with my partner.

A cup of ovaltine before bed, I’m enjoying one right now!

And sitting by the wood burner watching the flames lick up the chimney. Beautiful

Thank you! I thought I was the only one who did this. Also, you have excellent taste in books😊

Getting back into a warm bed after getting out for a wee in the middle of the night.

A hot bath with epsom salts and lavender oil
Sliced tomato on buttered toast with salt and pepper
Autumn forest walks
Foraging

I LOVE the beginning of The Reluctant Widow.

Also when she wakes up in the Hall and is brought hot chocolate and sips on it, comparing her real morning with what it would have been like at the endlessly mentioned Mrs Macclesfield’s.

The old audiobook on CD is wonderful. The audible one is robotic but ok for falling asleep to.

Working, as I do, in the book trade, it is well know that the majority 'at the beach' or 'on holiday' will be reading an actual not a virtual book. Print isn't dying off despite so much effort to kill it in some quarters.

Reading

Picking blackberries, goose gogs, sloes, & making jams, jellies & gins. Always better than shop bought!

Picking blackberries, goose gogs, sloes, & making jams, jellies & gins. Always better than shop bought!

Love proper tea in a pot, have it most days. Clean sheets, making toast on a toasting fork on the fire, watching birds on the bird table, when you put your slippers on after a long day - and when you take your bra off. Marmalade. Apple butter.

Takes me back to an intensive German language course at a remote retreat during A Levels and my first taste of Ovaltine

What a lovely thread OP

I love getting up early in the summer and having a quiet coffee in the garden before taking one up to DH.

Getting my workbox out and doing some mending, or doing knitting or crochet.

Sitting reading on a cold winter's afternoon with a fire blazing, DH reading next to me and a bottle of red wine on the go.

A walk in a local country park or over the fields opposite us to see the donkeys.

Georgette Heyer fans; Venetia, visits her Mother and her Stepfather walks her partly home.
Anyone else who really likes descriptions?

Bed socks.

Fresh clean bedding with a proper duvet.

A garden centre cream tea, mid afternoon and middle of the week.

Breakfast in the garden during the warmer months.

And making marmalade as well as the above.

Freshly changed white cotton bedding and some really soft knitted bed socks bring me a lot of happiness.

This time of year I love popping out to the shops on a sat getting nice munchies then home light candles pour wine whilst in warm pjs and fluffy sox and whack a joint of beef about 8 ish in slow cooker ready for dinner the Nxt day . And then chill with strictly and now I’m a celeb . I’m easily pleased 😂

I think you should do it all at the same time! 👌 They work well together!

• Walking in what is left of the English countryside. I mean the bits that haven’t been covered in disgusting new housing estates.
• Drinking in pubs with open fires (god I love the smell of an open log fire in an old pub).
• Reading out loud. My partner is a big reader, thankfully, and we have started reading Dickens and Jane Austen and P G Wodehouse out loud to one another. And I mean from actual books, the older the better, not kindles which I f-ing hate with all my f-ing heart.
• Laying in a hot bath.

A bubble bath,
Lighting a candle,
Reading a physical book!

And I'm with you enjoying a pot of tea - even better if tea leaves are used!

Using a fountain pen to write and filling it with ink from a bottle, not cartridges.
And if I don't use my pen, writing in pencil, sharpening pencils and rubbing out mistakes with a rubber.
Keeping a paper diary and using notebooks for all sorts of other things.
I have a card index on my desk too, for the project I'm working on at the moment.

I've definitely reverted to the stationery of my youth! It makes me so happy. Anyone else a traditional stationery fan?