200th Post, A Bonkers Fly Drive Trip, And A Giveaway Rain Check!

For my 100th post on Bonkers, I wrote a review of Maison Kurkdjian's APOM pour Femme, a recently discovered perfume love and one which perfectly encapsulated how, in the past three years, fragrance has become an important and integral part of my life - a piece of me, no less.

I fully intended to mark the occasion of my 200th post with a review of another significant scent release, and was going to call it: "200th Post - Going The Puredistance". I planned to team it with a draw for a fragrance blending kit from The Perfume Studio (of which I am an associate), in either the Oriental, Floral or Fresh styles. Each kit contains six different accords pre-mixed in alcohol, which can then be blended in a variety of combinations. Well, I will do both those things in due course, but not today, sadly, as I am packing for another Bonkers work trip to the US and have it - as they say - "all to do". There have been Bonkers Road and Bonkers Rail Trips before, so I am pleased to be ringing the changes on the transport mode front, at least.

While I am over there, I hope to meet up with ScentScelf and Bloody Frida, and maybe one or two other fumeheads, schedules permitting. The work itself and the state-hopping itinerary will be pretty punishing, but I will be sure to take advantage of any retail sniffing opportunities that cross my path.

Now I am sorry posts on Bonkers have been a bit sparse of late, but I have been working UK and US business hours for the past fortnight, knocking off at 11pm and not really managing to do the usual domestic stuff like laundry, food shopping, or even eating. On those few occasions when I have attempted to prepare food from scratch ingredients, I have invariably been sidetracked and the food has spoilt. The abandoned mushrooms in the grill pan pictured are just the tip of the icebox. This catalogue of neglect extends to newsprint: my copy of The Times from 26th February is still sitting on the living room table, taunting me with its pristine pages and increasingly historical content.

So I hope that normal service - and a more substantial anniversary post (with giveaway!) - will be resumed on my return towards the end of the month. Meanwhile, my brain feels how that map looks...