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?

I like to go through my boxes of special items I've kept from my kids childhood, photos, art and school peices etc, we don't do it too often only when having a sort out and declutter but they love it too as teens, all the... Do you remember when....comes out! I kept some of there favourite childhood books and we had a look through them not long ago, we all remembered the words to cat in the hat as we must of read it hundreds of times when they were kids 🤣

It was a thread specifically about Colman’s Mustard Powder and have you heard of it / how old are you, but it did get me into thinking about the things I keep in out of habit because we always had them growing up and so did my late Granny.

So as well as the mustard powder, I have gravy browning, suet, white pepper (when I can find it, love it on eggs) and probably a few more.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5570262-feeling-old-after-younger-shoppers-did-not-recognise-colmans-mustard-powder?page=1

I have suet. I use it for making proper dumplings, and when I make my Christmas mincemeat.

Yes, I use it for mincemeat and Christmas pudding. I do use all of these things but might not if I hadn’t been brought up with them IYSWIM and I like seeing the packets in my cupboards

Thanks. I also have mustard powder gravy browning and white pepper. I keep all the tins from the mustard powder and use them for other things. I also love white pepper on eggs. Just yesterday I had it on scrambled eggs. In fact, I have a cheap salt cellar that I fill about 60 / 40 with mixed up pepper and salt which gives the perfect eggy seasoning. Also good on beans on toast - after swirling mandatory butter through the beans - and indeed just toast. Oh, and pasta, too.

<drools "Mmm Pepper" in manner of Homer Simpson>

It’s obviously not the right time of year but a £1 bunch of daffodils is a nice simple pleasure.

When someone has bashed themselves or has a headache, and you have been organised enough to put a suitable plaster / paracetamol / a pack of tissues in your handbag. Makes me feel like a well organised boy scout!

Goinv to a country show or the seaside and having some freshly made donuts in a paper bag then buying a bag of candy floss to bring home.

Fresh air / Sea air
Playing Chess on an actual board
Looking at printed photographs (not on someone's phone with a filter applied)
Plain food - egg and soldiers! 😁
Writing in a hard-back bound notebook
Writing with a real ink pen
Sending postcards when you're on holiday
Walking
Spending far too long in the bookshop
Writing / Sending Christmas cards
Listening to the radio
Watching the waves of the sea
Wrapping up gifts to look beautiful
Cooking (I love cooking a Sunday Roast Dinner)
Snuggling up on the sofa
Shocking people when you're on holiday and you've attempted to learn some of the language
Dressing up
Listening to rain

Sigh.

Ooh yes, listening to rain! I was in a yoga class this week during a ferocious thunderstorm and it was rather lovely. Getting from the yoga studio to the car was rather less lovely but still....

Making custard from Birds custard powder, we always use that instead of instant or ready made (we don’t have custard all that often though). I love having the big bright tub of it in my cupboard, makes me nostalgic.

Yes to the rain. We've had far too little in my bit of Australia for nearly eighteen months, and listening to it hammering down on the steel roof of my house is glorious.

I keep meaning to make a list as I have so much to add, however, from this morning; a soft and squidgy doorstop of Japanese bread with thick butter and home made Blackberry and honey jam. Divine, and such a simple but amazing pleasure. Picking the blackberries with DD in the woods and making the actual jam were also simple / cherished pleasures.

Similar! I've just had some toasted soda bread with butter. Very simple but definitely a pleasure!

I've made 2 batches of blackberry jam super early this year, but haven't heard of honey jam! What is it and do you have a recipe?

I basically made it up, as we are beekeepers, and I had cleared out my pantry and found a couple of older jars of honey that had crystallised. I thought to myself well that's basically natural sugar, so why waste money on actual sugar. I used around 700g of blackberries, a tablespoon of lemon juice and around a jar and a half of honey (340g jars) It smelled amazing when it was cooking and I got around four jars of jam from it. You can also definitely taste that it has been made with honey rather than sugar.

Hope that's useful. It may not end up being cheap if you have to buy the honey, but it's definitely worth trying.

That bread and ham looks delicious! As a slight aside @RainbowZebraWarriorare you doing the Christmas chronicles thread this year? don’t want to miss it if so!

Yep, I will be. It's meant to start on 1st November, but I always start it a week earlier just to give folk a chance to get sorted. I'll post a link here when it's live x

@RainbowZebraWarrior excellent, I’ll keep my eye out! x