10 traditional skills for slow living

Enrich your life with 10 simple skills from yesteryear

Take life lessons from your grandparents, when slow living meant taking the time to make things by hand and appreciating the natural world. Try these mindful, hands-on traditional skills, tune in to nature and nurture a more sustainable way of life.

1 Make jam and preserves

Creating jam, chutneys, relishes and pickles is a thrifty way to capture the flavour of seasonal fruit and vegetables at their peak to enjoy all year round. It’s also a brilliant way to use fruit gluts and reduce food waste. Making jam is probably the most challenging method of preserving, but chutney is more forgiving and ideal for beginners, often only involving cooking down fruit or vegetables with vinegar, sugar and spices.

• Pam ‘The Jam’ Corbin is a renowned preserving expert. Her guide, The Book of Preserves, is brilliant for beginners, with 100 recipes for jams, jellies, marmalades, pickles, chutney and more
• Delia Smith offers a great selection of free recipes for jams and chutneys

2 Light a fire

Scout camp might be in the dim and distant past, but being able to light a fire is a useful skill. Create a frame by placing a large log at the back of your grate or firepit, and two smaller logs each side. Then place your lighting material – such as rolled up paper and shredded cardboard – along with a small piece of eco firelighter in the centre, and arrange kindling sticks teepee-style on top. When the kindling has properly caught, add a couple of small logs on top. Now bring out the marshmallows and get toasting!

• Woodland Ways offers a range of bushcraft skills, including fire lighting, on their weekends and workshops
• The Little Book of Building Fires by Sally Coulthard is a handy guide

3 Mend and darn

As an antidote to fast fashion, darning (using yarn) and mending (using needle and thread) are now seen as thrifty and sustainable ways to keep textiles out of landfill. Visible mending is seen as part of a garment’s story, something that can be a playful addition using techniques such as patchwork, appliqué or embroidery. Don’t worry if you’re not skilled at sewing – a rustic result is all part of the charm.

• Knitwear designer Fiona Collingwood-Norris runs workshops and offers online tutorials for darning and visible mending
• Look out for mending and sashiko workshops at Loop in Islington – classes book up fast
• For inspiration, follow Lily Fulop, author of Wear, Repair, Repurpose, or for sashiko try @zenstitching and @sashikostory

4 Identify trees and wild flowers

The more connected we are to nature, the more invested we become in preserving it. Way back most people would have grown up knowing elder from ash, or pineapple weed from sorrel, but many of us need a refresher. Learning the names of native species, and recognising them in different states throughout the seasons, from flower to fruit, is a really rewarding way to connect with the natural world. Plant and tree identification can also help turn walks into wild-food foraging expeditions too.

• The Hedgerow Handbook by Adele Nozedar is a wonderful guide to native species and foraging. She runs courses too
• There are a number of plant identification apps available, including Seek, Plantsnap and LeafSnap, but if you are picking wild foods to eat then do back up your identification with a reputable field guide too

5 Bake bread

Thanks to 14,000-year-old evidence uncovered in Jordan’s Black Desert, we know that Stone Age bakers made flour from wild wheat, barley, plant roots and water. These early bakers would hardly recognise our commercially produced bread. At its most basic, bread contains just three ingredients – flour, salt and yeast – and while some artisan bread may have achieved a cult-like status, such as sourdough, a simple loaf is not difficult to master.

• Find free recipes from the Real Bread Campaign
• Vanessa Kimbell’s The Sourdough School is often considered the go-to for courses. Richard Bertinet’s breadmaking workshops are ideal for beginners and beyond

6 Recognise birdsong

Another way to engage with nature, even if you’re in a city, is to tune into the natural avian orchestra around you. It helps to be an early riser, as dawn is when birds are at their most vocal. You can use an app to record and identify birds and their songs – try Picture Bird. Many songbirds are renowned for the beauty and complexity of their singing – such as the nightingale, blackcap, woodlark and wren – while others are more famous for calls, such as the cuckoo or the tawny owl’s famous ‘twit twoo’.

• Use the RSPB’s birdsong identifier
• The British Trust for Ornithology has put together helpful videos and playlists of bird songs. Search for #BirdSongBasics on YouTube

7 Brew homemade herbal tea

Technically known as a tisane, brewing tea from fresh or dried herb leaves couldn’t be easier. Simply pop an infuser in a pot or mug and leave to steep in boiling water for a few minutes. Easy tea herbs to grow in your garden include chamomile, mint, rosemary, lemon balm, giant hyssop, lemon verbena and borage. With many herbs possessing healing properties too – such as peppermint easing digestion and lemon balm promoting relaxation and sleep – growing herbs for tea and creating your own health-promoting blends is a wonderfully mindful pastime.

• Herb expert Jekka McVicar’s handy little book, A Pocketful of Herbs: An A-Z, is the perfect guide to growing and using herbs
• The RHS offers some expert growing advice on herbs for teas

8 Clean your home naturally

Inspired by the housekeeping wisdom of previous generations, try some thrifty and non-polluting traditional remedies. White vinegar is probably the most useful ingredient. Spray undiluted vinegar on your windows and polish with old newspaper, or squirt on your shower screen to remove limescale. A regular spray of vinegar on your bathroom tiles will prevent mildew forming too. Dilute vinegar with cooled boiled water in a 50/50 mix and add citrus peels and/or woody herbs such as thyme or rosemary. Leave to steep for a week, and use as a multipurpose surface cleaner.

You can even raid the pantry. Coarse salt and half a lemon will scrub up stained wooden chopping boards, while the tannins in black tea will bring back shine to your vintage mirrors. Restore your cane furniture by buffing with warm olive oil, and bring the gleam back to copper pans by polishing with a dollop of ketchup.

• Wendy Graham’s Moral Fibres blog has lots of great greener cleaning ideas
• Bake Off star Nancy Birtwhistle’s book, Clean & Green, offers some brilliantly simple eco cleaning tips

9 Observe the stars

The earliest mariners used the stars to navigate, and still today you only need your own eyes to see everything from Mars to Orion’s Belt. Experts suggest beginners try ‘star-hopping’ – find one star or constellation and use this to ‘hop’ to the next one, using a celestial map as a guide. Look for the Plough first, a constellation that is part of Ursa Major, which has two stars known as ‘the pointers’. These point to the bright star Polaris, also known as the North Star because of its fixed position above the North Pole. From Polaris, you can ‘hop’ across the whole Milky Way.

• Find the best places in the UK for stargazing at Dark Sky Discovery
• Use an app to help you identify the heavenly bodies and bring constellations to life. Try SkyView Lite or Night Sky

10 Get crafting with macramé

Hugely popular in the 1960s and 70s, the boho craft of macramé is back in fashion. If you’re not a confident crafter, part of the appeal of macramé is that it requires no special skills or equipment. You’ll just need a mounting ring and some cord, string or twine, which is simply knotted to create an open-textured decorative fabric. Make eco-friendly gifts such as wall art, rugs, bags and plant hangers by using recycled cotton macramé cord.

• For more inspiration, take a look on @knot_alot_macrame, @macrameforbeginners and @wemacramebeautiful
• Lucy Greene’s book, Macramé for Beginners, is great for learning the techniques and includes gorgeous interiors projects too

WORDS: LINDSEY HARRAD