Enter your grandma era this winter

Enter crochet into TikTok, and you’ll find thousands of clips, with hundreds of thousands, if not millions of views. From stuffed animals, to bags, hats to scarves – to entire outfits, crochet is back. Even Tom Daley, the Olympic diver has his own step by step book on how to do it.

What do you need to get started? Some yarn, your crochet hooks, some scissors, a tapestry needle and stitch markers. Best way to make sure you’ve got what you need is to google your local arts and crafts shop for the expert advice, and quite likely, where your local meet up is for crochet, which is seeing some pubs have crochet takeovers.

Best place we’ve found to crochet? Sat back in a rocking chair, on the covered veranda at Gold Panners.

We all knew someone that went mad making sourdough over lockdown – turns out, some never stopped. Baking’s high up there on the grandma era hobbies, and there’s really no limits on what you can create. If you’re wanting to stick to the starters and Dutch ovens for sourdough, then more power to you. In fact, Bon Appétit’s got a good winter sourdough recipe, from an English baker at Bertinet Kitchen. But who do you know that’d turn down a fresh pastel del nata? No one, that’s who. And if you’re already a dab hand at baking, maybe something a little more complex? What say you to macarons?

Our suggestion for a night in baking? Top Orchard’s got a good mix of utensils – check out what they’ve got to work with, and pick a weekend in, in style.

When’s the last time you busted out a 1000 piece and got serious? Too long ago, that’s what. We get it, doesn’t sound thrilling, but there’s so many reasons to be excited about puzzles. For starters, they’re often super low cost – and there’s a good chance you can pick one up from a charity shop, often new. There’s also the fact that it can either be a solo endeavour, or you can do one as a couple or group (you might want a friend or two after the 500-piece mark). And on top of that, it just so happens that doing puzzles, especially the analogue kind, has marked benefits on your mental health, as well as your brain’s physical health.

If you’re going to do it, do it right, grab the bottle of the local wine that’s been left for you, and sit by the wood burner at The Fallow Treehouse (and if you get stuck just go to the outdoor bath).

So, you don’t exactly need to be entering your grandma era in order to read a book. BUT, if you’re looking for an excuse to shirk going out, get into your comfiest pjs, and be in bed by 9pm? Oh, we’ve got you covered. For peak grandma tips, we’d suggest a full pj set, perhaps a herbal tea or two (also important grandmacore), maybe even a glass of wine. But the finishing move? Reading in the bath. Or even, dare we say it, the hot tub?

Best places to settle down with a good book in the bathtub? Undoubtedly Hideout Treehouse, where the bath moves from indoors to out, so when the night draws in, and it gets cooler, you’ve got indoor options too.

There’s a time and a place for going out, we can’t lie. It’s hard not to enjoy heading out for a raucous couple of bevvies. But 2024’s looking like wellness is going harder than ever before. In fact, even sleep tourism’s becoming a thing? Why not check a few of the boxes all at once? Take a couple of hours to forage about in the forest, enjoying a little mindful wandering – and make your own bath bombs for the ultimate self-care evening in.

You just know we have a spot for this one. In fact, we have a lot of places for this one. But with its own two-person wood fired hot tub and a barrel sauna, and a wooded valley to explore, Ravendere Treehouse is absolutely perfect.

As we plough through winter, counting the days until the light begins to return a little earlier and stay a little later – could entering your grandma era be the key? Could slowing down, our lives, our travel choices, our food, be the self-care we all deserve? We’re not saying your grandma would like to go glamping, but we’re also not, not saying it. So, take a leaf out of g-ma's book, book yourself a little stay somewhere and treat yourself just like grandma would. Go on, slip yourself a fiver too.