Join The Simple Things’ Editor Lisa Sykes and our regular co-host, contributor to the magazine and author of The Slow Traveller, Jo Tinsley, as they get thinking about how spring is much better time than wintry new year to take stock of you, exploring realisations and understanding about yourself and others. If you think that sounds a bit serious, do not worry, we’ll also be doing a procrastination quiz, learning life lessons from literature and highlighting a few of the great women and their stories we have featured in the magazine for International Women’s Day.

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Thanks to our partner for Season 9, Friends of Glass, an organisation that celebrates and supports glass packaging for food, drink and cosmetics. Find out more about why glass is better for health, taste and the environment and follow them on instagram @friendsofglassuk

Editing & music by Arthur Cosslett 

On the blog

Quiz | Which member of The Famous Five are you?

In previous issues (on sale at picsandink.com)

Kitchen Therapy: Layers of onions (Issue 164)

Life lessons from Russian Literature (issue 64). Read more in The Anna Karenina fix by Viv Groskop 

Lessons from The Famous Five (Issue 123)

Gifts from the Goddesses – Contemporary retellings of greek myths (issue 122)

Life Lessons from Alice – Be curious, eat cake and never steal jam tarts from royalty (Issue 109)

Procrastination Quiz – Find it hard to Get Stuff Done, occasionally? Take our entirely scientific and extremely focused quiz and find out exactly what type of procrastinator you are and how best to overcome it (or simply live alongside it). (Issue 87)

As Good As Your Word – Using more positive language can make a big difference to your life, reawakening your confidence and boosting your happiness (Issue 76)

Wisdom: women doing what they love across the UK’s paths and roads, bridleways and waters (Issue 156)

Wisdom: Learn with Mother – women who have each inherited unique qualities from their mothers, with childhood lessons carried into their adult lives (issue 153)

Flip-thinking - turning problems into opportunities (issue 129)

Future tense: why some anxiety is good for us (issue 123)

In our Flourish Volume 4

Mental Notes – Life lessons from around the globe

Find out more

Words Can Change Your Brain by Dr Andrew Newberg and Mark Waldman (Penguin) 

50 Sentences That Make Life Easier: A Guide for More Self-Confidence by Kari