We’re so used to new boutique brands with a laser-like focus on their product niche that I have to admit, Sirch surprised me. Rather than specialise in one or two kinds of product, the German company has been making all manner of wooden items for 30 years – everything from industrial pallets and crates to modernist furniture. A whole section of their website is devoted to sleds.

This may make Sirch sound like a woodworking Walmart, a mass-producing Jack-of-all-trades, but in fact the company is just excellent at what it does – and is thereby impelled to push its craftsmanship and flair for design in diverse directions.

Nowhere is this more obvious than in their ‘Sibis’ range of ‘no-frills’ children’s toys. Stripped-back, sturdy and timelessly minimal, the range reinvents classic items such as the walker trolley, ride-on car and mini wheelbarrow. The aesthetic blends the homely with something distinctly modernist; our pick of the bunch is the Rosa rocker, a study in steel and solid ash that is at once stylish, substantial and brilliantly unpretentious. I can’t vouch for the pallets but if you’re in the market for a little one’s birthday gift, give Sirch a try.

Sirch rocking horse, £94 available at oskoe.com