A Few of our Favourite Things
Somewhere between the agenda and the cup of tea afterwards, committee chat wandered to something nicer — the things we've each come to love along the way. We didn't manage to whittle the list down much, so here's a taste of it.
Anya
Weleda Skin Food — the thick, green, slightly old-fashioned-looking tube that's been on bathroom shelves for a hundred years and counting. It's older than it looks, in the best way:
Born by a Swiss hillside, out of Steiner's own idea — that skin and soil and spirit aren't so far apart from here. A doctor and a chemist stirred up calendula and wax, no promises, no lab-made shine — just what the earth provides, in fact. A hundred years, same tin, same smell, still doing what it's always done. Turns out the old ideas, done well, don't need to be improved upon.
Poems for Buttercup Doll
And Poems for Buttercup — handmade Waldorf dolls and needle-felted crowns made just down the road in Gisborne. Simple faces, natural fibres, made with the seasons in mind — it's always nice when a favourite turns out to be practically a neighbour.
Bronwyn
Playsilks, unsurprisingly — there's a reason they turn up in almost every Waldorf-inspired home. And a hand-crank flour mill: a real one, for real flour, not a toy version. Turn the handle, and wheat becomes something you can actually bake with. It's the same idea behind kneading bread at kindergarten — nothing pretend about it, just a genuinely useful bit of real work, sized for small hands and a slow morning.
Little Eco Folk Play Silks
Chelsea
Ostheimer Fir Tree Dwarves
Ostheimer toys — the hand-carved German wooden figures with the simple, slightly worn-smooth look to them. Each one is still sawed, sanded, and painted by hand in a small village workshop, which is probably why they never quite go out of fashion. And Drewart furniture — the play stands and play shops parents will recognise from kindergarten corners everywhere, handmade in Poland, left unvarnished so the wood grain and the odd knot show through.
