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Gifts that last a year, by ELEANOR DOUGHTY
Get your motor running
Petrolhead’s paradise: Brooklands A century ago, Brooklands, just outside Weybridge, Surrey, was the Ascot of motor-racing. The world’s first purpose-built motor-racing circuit opened in 1907. Nowadays, Brooklands – which closed as a race track to convert to an aircraft factory during the Second World War – is a museum. While you’re there, visit the London Bus Museum, tour Concorde and learn all about the British Grand Prix, before sitting down for a scrumptious lunch.
HOW TO ORDER: An individual membership, which gives free entry to the museum for a year, as well as a bi-monthly magazine, costs from £45, and a double from £68. brooklandsmuseum.com
Idle away the hours
‘I love to loaf, loud and long and clear… I love to loaf, it’s getting worse ev’ry year…’ With apologies to the cast of Mary Poppins, this could be the theme tune of Tom Hodgkinson’s The Idler magazine, which was launched in 1993, the name deriving from a collection of essays by Dr Johnson. Published bi-monthly, The Idler promotes the art of loafing, making idling around an art form. HOW TO ORDER: A year’s subscription costs £39.95 by direct debit. As they say, ‘We want you to slow down, have fun and live well!’ It’s hard to argue with that. idler.co.uk
Cook on the wild side
Imagine waking up of a morning to find a tempting box of exotic meat on your doorstep. Dream no more: Oslinc, a family-run ostrich farm in Lincolnshire, is here. This is no ordinary meat box. Ostrich is one of the more familiar meats on Oslinc’s menu – try out their kangaroo, crocodile, zebra and buffalo selections too, in the form of sausages, meatballs, mince, burgers, fillets and steaks. HOW TO ORDER: Gift packs are popular, and rightly so: Oslinc’s seasonal selection of four meats across five different cuts makes for a tasty menu, and an economical one, too, at £29.95. oslinc.co.uk Baking inspiration Ahh, that’s the smell of freshlybaked bread. And yes, it’s the same one as you baked last week. Looking to be freshly inspired by the oven?
Enter Bakedin, a baking subscription box with a new recipe every month, where the dry ingredients are sent already weighed out for you to bake up a storm. Choose from a baking subscription, where past recipes include lemon and blueberry biscotti, raspberry ripple cake and mocha Swiss roll – or a bread baking subscription, to whip up a perfect loaf.
HOW TO ORDER: Subscriptions start at £30, for three months, and junior boxes, for those aged 5-11, make a lovely gift for little ones. bakedin.co.uk
Make arrangements
In certain places, if you look carefully on a weekday morning, you might spot a curious little man on a bicycle with a box of flowers on the front. The chances are that he works for Freddie Garland, founder of Freddie’s Flowers, the smartest flower-delivery service around. Seasonal flowers arrive nationwide in cardboard boxes, complete with a handy guide to arranging.
HOW TO ORDER: Send a one-off box to your green-fingered friends for £28, or send them regularly – weekly, fortnightly or monthly – starting from £75 for a box a month for three months. freddiesflowers.com
For bookworms
Few gifts are better than a good book. There are countless book subscription services but, for the eco-friendly bookworm, Hand Me Down Book Club has come up with something a bit different: a preloved book subscription, so you can do your bit for the planet as well as enjoy a good read. Books come in perfectly readable condition: as they say, ‘we would never send out anything that is anything less than what we’d be happy with ourselves.’ Choose from five genres (plus two more for younger readers), or choose to be surprised with up to six books each month. HOW TO ORDER: Subscriptions for two books a month start from £9.99. hmdbookclub.co.uk
Heritage-lovers. rejoice!
Abbotsford House, Melrose You ’ve spent a lifetime traipsing around National Trust properties, but the Trust’s collection only scratches the surface. Historic Houses (formerly the Historic Houses Association) has 1,500 privately-owned country houses of varying sizes, over 300 of which are open to the public. HOW TO ORDER: Individual memberships cost £56, and doubles £89 for a year for free entry to hundreds of country piles. From the Duke of Argyll’s fairytale Inveraray Castle off Loch Fyne, to the rockpalace Knebworth in Hertfordshire, Historic Houses has it all. historichouses.org
Step out in style
Know a sock-lover? Send a sock subscription for Christmas and your chosen recipient can receive up to three box-fresh pairs a month. There’s a sock in every colour, style, and size, too, from welly-boot socks to trainer socks.
HOW TO ORDER: Subscriptions start from £10 a month for one pair. When your sock drawer gets full, you can easily pause your subscription, and pick it back up again when your favourite pair is looking tired. londonsockcompany.com