Turf wars: tackling Tootsie, Truffle's neighbourhood nemesis, with a pungent personalised potion from Papillon Perfumery

'Anti-Cat' by Papillon Perfumery

After Charlie Bonkers died, and long before I ever thought of getting another cat, I noticed an occasional feline visitor to the garden and window sill of my new house. My first thought was how handsome he was, and how much he reminded me of Undina's famous orange and white cat Rusty. Much later, I learnt through a friend that this was in fact none other than Tootsie, who lived in the next street to me and was well known for 'breaking and entering' into anyone's house that took his fancy, especially those where the owner had thoughtfully installed a cat flap and left it on a two way setting. But back then, in blissful ignorance of his thug-like persona, I briefly changed my profile picture on Facebook to a photo of Tootsie(!), and went public with the comment:

"I would love to be cultivated by such a cute cat!"

The following exchange ensued - oh, that I had paid attention to the warnings contained within...

Jane: "This one could be staking you out...;)"

Gary: "A lot of feral cats have taken to wearing dinky little bells, just to get inside a trusting human's house and wreak HAVOC."

Jane: "Yep, sneaky little buggers they are..."

Gary: "The only way to be sure is to shave it and check for tattoos."

Jane: "I have tattoos but, sadly, no bell. ;) "

Gary: "Me too, loads of them, but I'm not trying to get into Vanessa's house and wreak HAVOC."

Jane: "That's what you are saying in public..."

Gary: "You can tell by his eyes that his focus in life is to soil some Farrow & Ball..."

Vanessa: "F & B desecration?!! Right, that moggy may not last the week if that is true."

Truffle surveys the double decker interlopers

Three years later, I was a cat owner again, and Tootsie was displaced as the Top Cat in the neighbourhood, who could claim every house and its garden as his own. It didn't stop him still trying to claim them though, and he became an ever more regular visitor to the garden, engaging in long, malevolent staring matches with Truffle from the safety of a high wall. Soon the situation escalated, and Tootsie would come into the house and steal Truffle's food, have a crafty p**s behind the kitchen door, and take a passing pot shot at Truffle if she happened to be about. Once, when I was away for a week, Tootsie managed to bludgeon his way into the house despite the cat flap being locked, and stayed there long enough to soil - not anything Farrow & Ball as such(!) - but several layers of bedding all the way through to the mattress. Months later, I found his unexpected calling card of a fossilised poo under the bed...

And there was worse to come...more recently, Tootsie bit a chunk out of Truffle's ear during a particularly vicious fight. When I confronted him outside - trying to make myself look as fierce as possible by screwing up my face into an expression of pure hatred, whilst waving a lump of wood in an agitated fashion in his general direction - Tootsie shot me a look of withering derision, his eyes as urinous as the puddle he had not long left on the utility floor. Then he lunged at the bit of wood with a dismissive swipe of his paw, and sauntered back along the wall, with an insolent swagger that was as defiant as it was maddening.

Truffle's 'cloven' ear

I happened to mention my bother with cat incursions to Liz Moores of Papillon Perfumery, with whom I have periodic exchanges via Messenger. Well, no one in Perfume Land knows more about animal matters than Liz(!), and she promptly offered to make me up a cat-repelling potion to deter Tootsie from trespassing in future. Ideally, I should get close enough to spray his fur with the disgusting liquid - a mix of hyraceum (as used in Salome, but only in trace amounts!) and civet. It was designed to fool the cat into thinking it had had a brush with another - big, scary, but not quite identifiable - predator. Failing that, I was to spray the wall or other familiar routes Tootsie used to enter the garden with the mixture, thus creating a similar, if more ambient, impression.

The 'Anti Cat' remedy, as Liz had dubbed it, smelt truly ghastly. I diluted it and put it in a spray bottle, and soon had my first opportunity to try squirting it at Tootsie as he ran away down the garden. Unfortunately the trigger mechanism jammed at the key moment, and if Tootsie had thought to look back at this point and note my disarray, he would surely have uttered a disdainful guffaw at my technical malfunction.

Anti-spray bottle!

In fairness that bottle had only cost a quid in Wilko or something, so the next time I was in Lidl I popped into Wickes and picked up a more heavy duty-looking receptacle for a  fiver. Slight overkilll, given the quantity of Anti-Cat in question(!), but I sensed the nozzle wouldn't let me down, and so it proved.

I didn't have long to wait before I found Tootsie in the corridor leading to the back door one night, and promptly locked the cat flap to cut off his line of retreat. Tootsie proceeded to head butt the flap in annoyance, giving me ample opportunity to spray his back thoroughly in Anti-Cat. I was careful to avoid his head, as that might have been a cruel and unusual punishment too far - I was sorely tempted, mind. With Tootsie now well wetted, I opened the flap and he scarpered sharpish, suitably freaked out by the foul smell of his own furry person.

Sadly, as happened that time Truffle fell through the hole in next door's garage roof, only to do the exact same thing again a couple of days later, cats have short memories, and Tootsie seems to have forgotten all about his unpleasant ordeal, and is as much of a pest as ever. Many thanks to Liz for concocting this stinky potion though - it was certainly worth a try!

(On a more fragrant note, the latest release from Papillon Perfumery, Dryad (review here) is due to be released on July 10th.)

My tsundoku shame, and thoughts on blogging, and being a backwards burrowing bookworm

I am interrupting my planned cat and loosely 'perfume'-related post - so loose that the 'p' word has to be couched in inverted commas - plus I can't be technically 'interrupting' a post I hadn't started writing - to bring you some shock news about my book reading rate in the past 8 years, which also happens to be getting on for the time I have been blogging. I keep a 'book diary', you see, in which I write the year and month when I finish each title I read, so the data is there in all its inglory, which if it wasn't a word before, is now.

The topline is that in those 8 years I have read a paltry 48 books, or 6 per year on average. The rate varies between 1 book in 2012 (when I split up with Mr Bonkers and moved house) to 12 in 2015, for reasons that are not immediately apparent.

I posted this alarming statistic on Facebook, and two friends replied, one of whom has a speed reading rate that would blow me out of the water!

"56 pages an hour is my average rate. 12 hours a week is also a good average. 100 books a year allowing for 336 pages per book."

I love the precision of '336 pages'...that figure didn't come out of nowhere either, I sense, ditto '56 pages an hour'. I don't know for sure, but have a feeling my hourly rate might be nearer 20 pages. Plus there is the whole issue of print size and line height. I own some books which I think I might fancy reading, but as soon as I open them and see how densely covered in tiny type the pages are, I promptly shut them again, however engrossing they might otherwise be!

I don't watch much TV - or DVDs - either!

Another friend, who is a short story writer, posted:

"31 so far this year for me, thanks to having joined the FB group Read 100 books in 2017. Unlikely I'll manage the full 100, though."

So whilst not as voracious a bookworm as the first friend, she is still managing to read my annual average in a month, near as dammit.

I scratched my head for a while, puzzling at the massive disparity between these friends' reading rates and my own, before it dawned on me that blogging throughout that period will have accounted for a fair chunk of time...probably something of the order of 3,500 hours at a guess, which equates to two years in 'working week' terms, assuming no holiday allowance. But that still leaves the other six, haha, so further factors must also be at work.

For example, I recently discovered that I suffer from dry eye syndrome, and I do definitely struggle more with my eyesight for close work, despite having been told my prescription hasn't really changed in recent years. I don't own a pair of reading glasses as such, mind, and could probably do with one. For now, I am using an old pair of distance glasses from 15 years ago, which are not a bad substitute! And there was also the trouble with my old bath, which never seemed to keep the water hot for more than about five minutes, an ambient temperature not exactly conducing to a 'wallow and read' habit.

Then just this morning, it occurred to me to see if I had kept any records prior to 2008, and sure enough I had...all the way back to 2002 in fact. I got the idea off my late mother, about the meaning of whose system of ticks and crosses we can but speculate. She also noted where she got the tip off from to read a particular book, which ranges from The Times, to the 'S.T' - which I am going to assume is The Sunday Times - to The Oldie and The Spectator - plus occasional mentions of me!

Mother's book diary

And the upshot of my analysis of my own previous book diary is as revealing as it is concerning. In the 7 years between 2002 and 2008 I read 157 books(!), equating to 22.5 a year, versus my 6 a year nowadays. That is almost four times as many. And I was working A LOT more than I do today. I could imagine I got through a good few books on my trips away, in the absence of any human interaction. And also on those kind of beach-y holidays I don't take anymore.

So that is all rather sobering to put it mildly. Ironically, the fact that I read so little - I don't even take a newspaper now, which used to occupy entire weekends back in the day - doesn't seem to stop me buying books. ;) Why, only yesterday I bagged four for just over a fiver in Oxfam: two first editions, a Helen Dunmore that was new to me (in honour of her recent demise), and a Louise Doughty (on the premise that anything written by the author of the incomparable Apple Tree Yard simply had to be worth a punt!).

This compulsion to buy books is a trait I inherited from my father. At his death, he was virtually entombed by books in his tiny flat: they were piled high in the middle of the living room like the footings of an unfinished building, and the floor to ceiling bookcases in every room were double or triple stacked. There were books under the bed and in the bathroom, and none of the doors opened more than a crack because of a book-related obstruction lurking immediately behind. His library ended up filling 140 large cardboard removal boxes, which are in my brother's attic, still largely waiting to be sorted and sold, and are one of the subjects of this post from last September.

Source: fet.uwe.ac.uk

So yes, I am my father's daughter, and have tsundokus dotted all over the house, even if none of the gangways are impeded as such. ;) I regularly break them up into smaller piles so as not to frighten the horses, but the house is silting up with unread books all the same. I tell myself I will read them when I am retired, even though the government keeps moving the glimmering mirage of the state pension further off into the far distance. Hey, I have so little work at the moment that I am semi-retired already. Make that three quarters-retired even! And still I don't read.

No, I think the reason for my woeful book reading rate is partly the blogging, for sure, but it will also have a lot to do with social media and my propensity to fritter away time, and make a meal - and heavy weather! - of the simplest of chores. I have taken time wasting to the rarefied level of an Olympian sport. They say that mothers of new borns are the most productive people of all, getting more done in the odd 15 minutes they can snatch while the baby is napping than people like me achieve in a week.

And to make matters worse, I joined Instagram last week! I agree that the steady procession of arty photos people post on there is pleasingly restful, but I still prefer the verbal cut and thrust of Facebook, and I could never ever reconcile myself to that annoying thicket of hashtags. So I may not be on there for long...


I would be really interested to know what your reading rates are like, and whether they have changed lately.

If so, what do you put that down to? 

Some of these are admittedly hotel guides and dictionaries

Me, I am off to start 'The Trouble With Goats and Sheep', by Joanna Cannon, which was a birthday present from my friend Gillie. In a surprise turn of events, Joanna is helping out at her Alzheimer's choir group. I don't know what has brought her to Stafford.

Now I would lie in the sun for a bit, but I have 100 chemical and cosmetic allergens taped to my back, and the nurse was most insistent that I 'stay cool!'. Hopefully this will confirm the source of my eyelid eczema and may well prompt a further post on the matter.

Baz Luhrmann's Sunscreen: do as he says, not as I do - plus wistful thoughts on Colladeen Visage, and other sunburn remedies

Burning in progress!

The other day, in the garden of a cafe in a Birmingham suburb, I aged ten years in a single lunchtime. It was a long and lazy lunch, but that's still some fast forwarding of the natural ageing process. Not even the delicious loaf of artisan baked rye bread I took home with me could make up for the damage I had inadvertently done to myself. And all because I forgot to apply sunscreen - or rather, I had applied a moisturiser with SPF30 that morning, which on closer - and retrospective - inspection of its crimped edge, turned out to have expired last September.

I had come down to Brum with my friend Gillie, to meet our new friend Maureen, a crime writer who lives nearby. The weather was intermittently sunny and cloudy, with a light wind. When the sun came out it did feel hot on my face, but I thought I was protected...or rather, I was so engrossed in our animated and wide-ranging conversation that I didn't really think at all.

A few days later, after a brief phase of redness on my cheekbones and under-eye puffiness, I was left with a lattice of new wrinkles under each eye that weren't there before. When I used to smile, I'd just have a little pouch of fat form under each eye, while the skin below that was near enough smooth. Ironically, the photographer at my godson's wedding the other weekend remarked on this very fact. Well, sadly that is no longer the case...or not when I smile. 'So don't smile!' volunteered ex-Mr Bonkers helpfully. And to be fair I don't really feel like smiling much at the moment. I am too busy kicking myself for this latest sun-related folly, the last one being in 2001 when I fell asleep in the sun on a bench, and woke up with swollen eyelids like angry red balloons. They eventually imploded - like punctured balloons indeed - but that incident kickstarted the crepeyness of my upper eyelids that is slowly worsening over time. Oddly it doesn't bother me nearly as much as what is now going on underneath my eyes.

Me (with makeup) a year ago. My skin certainly is 'dryer' now!

I guess I shouldn't be surprised at this latest lapse, for I am a person with appalling 'form' for self-abuse in the sun. In the 70s, a Health & Safety-free decade, as I recall, I used to use Factor 2 sun tan lotion on my body and Factor 4 on my face. As a hedonistic teenager I would spend all day in the sun, and when I went into the exam hall to sit my university finals, the staff jokingly asked me for my passport, a rather politically incorrect reference to the deep bronze colour I had turned thanks to my al fresco revision. In the early 90s, I remember being shocked and indignant on a visit to Australia to find that Factor 8 was the lowest strength of sun cream on sale over there at the time.

And now the laugh is on me...I should have listened to Baz, I should have had Undina with me(!), urging me to keep to the shade with her. My friend Suzanne is also very sun-aware, and would surely have plonked a big floppy sunhat on my head, after ensuring I was slathered in SPF50. As it is, I am slathered in coconut oil (at her suggestion) in a bid to rehydrate the taut, dehydrated delta where the new wrinkles lurk.

"Ladies and gentlemen of the class of 2007, wear sunscreen
If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it
The long term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists
Whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable
Than my own meandering experience, I will dispense this advice now"

Baz Luhrmann: Sunscreen

So yes, on to the wistful thoughts part...I recently started taking Colladeen Visage, which doesn't contain collagen, as the name might suggest, but rather a selection of collagen-boosting natural plant compounds that can supposedly 'play a protective role against the damaging effects of sunlight on skin'. The leaflet that comes with the tablets goes on to say: 'But please note: Colladeen Visage should only be used as an additional protection against sun damage. It certainly does not replace your normal sun protection regime.' Hmm, I think I should have listened to the makers of Colladeen too!

I should explain that the 'Visage' version of Colladeen differs from the regular one through the addition of lutein as well as anthocyanidins and OPCs. I know, I had to look them up too, They are bioflavonoids of some kind, basically plant extracts with antioxidant properties. Here's a link to all the different types, though I have to say it largely washes over me. The PR blurb for Colladeen Visage continues to mock and reassure the user in one deft (sun-) stroke:

"UV rays and over-exposure to the sun can be especially harmful to our skin, and it’s nice to know that there is a supplement which can help provide an internal SPF and help skin cope better with exposure to sunlight."

So I haven't half put it through its paces then!

Me, no makeup, not smiling - bags under the eyes!

Colladeen Visage does do well in consumer reviews: it got 88/100 in this survey in Good Housekeeping, for example. And I can honestly say I did feel my skin was smoother - (in a further ironic twist) particularly the under eye area - in the month or so that I had been taking it before this accident. In fact one day I woke up and the tautness of my skin actually looked as though I had had a face lift overnight! I have never seen anything like it, and though that effect kind of subsided somewhat over time, I really do think something was going on at a 'cellular level', as the dermatologists say. ;)

Me, no makeup, smiling - multiple wrinkles

(Editor's note: I promise I have other, grimmer-looking photos than these, but can't bring myself to show you in case the act of publishing them sets the wrinkles 'in stone'!)

And now it is a week and a half since that day in Brum, and I am carrying on with the Colladeen Visage, in the hope that it can mitigate the damage even after the fact, ditto the coconut oil, while also applying that Dr Organic Manuka Honey Rescue cream I mentioned in my eczema post. It is soothing and has the right amount of richness for my ultra parched skin. Finally, I have ordered some organic, cold pressed rosehip oil, which is supposed to have healing properties.

It may be too early to tell to what extent I can reverse the ill effects of that one act of thoughtlessness, though I will report back if these latest interventions seem to have helped. I think there may even have been a slight improvement since these photos were taken a few days ago, but I may be imagining it**. Meanwhile Gillie says I should be philosophical about the whole business, taking a leaf out of Buddha's book. You know, shit happens (those may not be his exact words), accept it and  move on.

Sali Hughes, my go-to beauty guru, also has timely wisdom on the matter in her book 'Pretty Honest', reminding us that the wrinkle count on our faces is still very much a first world problem:

"It's really important that you don't fall down the rabbit hole of self-scrutiny in your mature years because, truly, you will be fighting a losing battle. Each month, your face will show new evidence of the ageing process, much of it uncontrollable, and you will drive yourself crackers, like someone holding their hand over the leak in a colander. That way madness lies."

Oh, and in case I find myself in the sun again - though I shall do my best to avoid it now, despite my reckless past! - I will be slapping on my (brand new!) tube of Avene's Eau Thermale SPF50 Emulsion (see photo below)...

Hmm, going back to Baz, I think my knees - while not an attractive feature of mine as such, and once famously described by a boyfriend as 'serviceable' - are in good nick at least, and I am working on the jealousy and the flossing. ;)


Have you ever really burnt yourself and lived to regret it? Especially on a delicate area of skin?

I would love to hear about your tried and tested sunburn remedies, especially any that help reduce wrinkles caused by sun damage!


**Update

Here I am on Day 11, slathered in coconut oil, enormous hands, gormless expression, and with no makeup except lipstick. I think the oil may be helping a bit after all.

A spritzing blitz in London with Tara and Undina: Day 2 - Ormonde Jayne, Selfridges, Les Senteurs, & opaque bottle overload

Avery scent animals

Day 2 of my London trip dawned sunny and warm. Obviously, in my windowless room I learnt this from my phone, not empirical evidence. I was due to meet Undina and her vSO at their Airbnb flat at whatever time we all surfaced, a relaxed arrangement of which I heartily approved. Just as well really, for having ascertained that it was in fact morning, and with devices fully charged, I soon ran into another logistical snag: the mirror in the bathroom misted up following my shower, and in the absence of ventilation took over half an hour to clear again, rendering makeup application a hit and miss affair involving a compact mirror propped up on a pillow. The cord of the hair dryer wouldn't have stretched as far as the en suite anyway, so I cut my losses and blow dried my hair from memory. It didn't look too bad, considering, albeit the ends were all pointing the same way - as in towards the hotel exit.

It was about 10.30am by the time I arrived at Undina's and her vSO's place, luggage in tow. Having stashed it in a corner of their living room, we sat down to an impromptu breakfast of cheese, crackers and truffles (I like the cut of their culinary jib!), washed down by two mugs of most superior Earl Grey. I was intrigued to see Undina put marmalade in her tea, which I hadn't come across before, but a spot of googling confirms it as a thing. Then I was excited to note that their accommodation had the exact same make and model of bathtub (Carron Delta!) as in my bathroom, along with towels the colour of the woodwork - Purbeck Stone, to any Farrow & Ball fans out there - which made me feel even more at home.

Before we set off, Undina helped rationalise my bags and applied a prophylactic blister cream to my heels, as I wasn't wearing any form of hosiery that day. I did say in Part 1 that I love being 'straightened out' by Undina, and I really meant it! I think I was quite good during the day at keeping my one remaining bag shut (and safe from robbers, a tip I learnt from Undina in Paris), but my persistent habit of walking fast and/or jaywalking between parked cars needed periodic reining in. Undina's vSO came with us, and did his usual thoughtful peeling off trick in search of blokey emporia at each of our perfume destinations.

Royal Arcade, Old Bond Street

Ormonde Jayne

First up was Ormonde Jayne's original store in Royal Arcade, Old Bond Street, where we quickly got chatting to two ladies from South Carolina - serious fragrance lovers who were just off the plane and ready to pound the pavements between perfumeries on a major acquisition offensive. Undina was able to help them out with information on reclaming VAT and/or getting their purchases past customs - I was only listening with half an ear at this point, as it didn't apply to me - and they were fulsome in their thanks for her seasoned advice.

At Ormonde Jayne, Undina was keen to sniff Jardin d'Ombre again - on skin this time - though it can only be bought at Fortnum & Mason. Meanwhile, my wrist was deployed as a scent mule for Ambre Royal, a Harrods exclusive. Jardin d'Ombre seemed promising to begin with - a citrusy green floral reminiscent of Tiare - but as the day wore on, it collapsed down to a nondescript blur of cleanish musk. Ambre Royal was a pleasant fuzzy amber, but we both felt we had that box ticked already in our respective collections, so it too was ruled out of our inquiries, along with Sensual Lover and Passionate Lover. The names alone of that pair might have done it for me, to be fair. And I speak as a huge admirer of Ormonde Jayne, one of the brands with which I have historically had the best 'strike rate'. I once likened their original range to a fragrance capsule wardrobe. I even thought up actual outfits to go with each one. ;) And Ta'if is possibly in my top two fragrances of all time - certainly my top five. However, Ormonde Jayne's range seems to have mushroomed since I last looked, as well as adopting an exclusive positioning (in terms of both distribution and pricing) on certain fragrances, and I must confess I find it harder to relate to the brand these days.

While in the Ormonde Jayne store we also sniffed the powdery, slightly oudy oriental, Rose Gold, which we both liked, even though it costs a wallet-whittling £345 for 120ml. Its manly counterpart, Black Gold, weighs in at a hefty £420 for 120ml, which would be exorbitant if it had in fact been actual oil. At Selfridges, our next stop, we encountered the third scent in the trilogy, White Gold, which was upcoming at the time of our spritzing blitz, but which has now been officially launched in that store, also on an exclusive basis. I liked White Gold even more than Rose Gold, to the extent that I shall post its notes, collated from Now Smell This.

Notes: jasmine absolute, white musk, orchids, leaf green molecule, pink pepper, mandarin, bergamot, clary sage, carnation, orris, freesia, vanilla, ambrette, cashmeran, amber, moss, tonka, labdanum, opoponax, vetiver and cedar.

Selfridges

We had estimated half an hour to 'do' Selfridges' - now even more extensive perfume halls than when I was last there - but thanks to the indefatigable patience of Undina's vSO, managed to renegotiate this to nearer an hour. In that time we scored samples of Rose Gold (Undina) and White Gold (me), and I was able to study the opaque bottles of this trilogy for the first time. Rose Gold was in a hot pink bottle that wouldn't look out of place on a Bond No 9, and which was also not dissimilar to my small pink knitting indeed. My views on opaque bottles are well documented elsewhere on Bonkers, but it doesn't stop me loving Amouage Honour Woman, say, and it wouldn't put me off White Gold either, had the price been right.

Editor's note: A reader has kindly pointed out that the bottle in the centre of this display in in fact ONE. I think the SA must have whipped a tester of White Gold out from behind the counter.

There was heaps more of interest in Selfridges, not least these animal-themed ceramic scent diffusers offered by Avery. (See also the pair of dogs at the top of the post. Undina and I scoured the fixtures in vain in search of a cat.)

Avery turned out to be the surprise stable for a host of brands, including ROADS Fragrances, which I have reviewed on the blog. I should point out that throughout the day, Undina had far more stamina than me for the actual business of sniffing, mainly from nozzles and on card. From time to time she would encourage me to join her in appraising something she considered of interest, or to ask my opinion on the notes we were smelling. (Tara would have been a better person to approach, had she been with us!) And here and there I got a rush of blood to the nose and got stuck in myself, notably when we came across the highly original - and punning! - Italian concept brand, Jusbox, whose bottles, sleeve notes, blotters, and assorted promotional material were based around the theme of vinyl records, the whole thing executed with gloriously whimsical attention to detail.

Undina and I were deeply impressed by the novelty of this brand, which had an extra resonance for me on account of my musical connections, and we tried them all on record-peeping-coyly-out-of-its- sleeve-shaped cards.

I initially thought I liked a spicy number called 14Hour Dream, but was quickly troubled by a phantom heliotrope note that I still seem to smell on the card some 10 days later.

We both liked Black Powder best, which is inspired by the 90s Grunge scene and its iconic spokesman, the late Kurt Cobain, and both came away with a sample. The blackcurrant top note caught Undina's fancy - no surprises there!

Notes: blackcurrant, apple, pimento, suede, tobacco leaf, olibanum, sandalwood, tonka bean, patchouli

We also swung by the Jo Malone concession briefly, where Undina public-spiritedly paused to refresh the 'tester stoppers' of one or two of their scents. I reminded myself how much I like Mimosa & Cardamom, and noted in passing that 30ml now costs £44 instead of £30 odd back in the day. I don't know if that is down to rising costs of ingredients or general opportunism, but prices of niche (I use the term loosely) seem to have increased across the board in recent years, with Roja Dove's line famously seeing the price uplift equivalent of a Harrier Jump Jet taking off from a warship. And being a bit of a born again tuberose lover, I also tried Tuberose Angelica, part of the Cologne Intense range, but it was too intense, sadly, despite a flurry of card wafting attempts to quieten it down.

Other highlights from our Selfridges session were the male fragrances, Layton and Pegasus from Parfums Marly, though I was found the fussy pink livery of the top-selling feminine scent, Delina, a tad disturbing.

It reminded me of talcum powder or those rather garish opaque Xerjoff bottles, and to my eye looked cheap, to be perfectly honest.

Source: essezna-nobile.de

Just around the fixture, I fell hard for Amouage Blossom Love, despite its also coming in a pink opaque bottle! The opening notes were like being in a pillow fight of orange-inflected petals, and again I feel moved to document the notes:

Notes: bergamot, heliotrope, amaretto, ylang, rose, cherry blossom, amber, tonka bean, vanilla and suede

Source: fragrantica

Well, well, I see there's an actual heliotrope note and it didn't bother me at all. Colour me inconsistent! We also smelt Bracken - again in Undina's case - and whilst I found it interesting, it was absolutely not my thing, and got progressively 'strange fruit-ier' as it wore on.

Don't ask!

It was way past lunchtime by now, and so we popped into the cafe on the corner by Les Senteurs for a quick snack to fortify us for the final leg of our sniffathon. And here we had another of those comedy moments when Undina and I discovered we were both carrying Dior lipsticks...in Paris it had been a case of 'Burberry bingo'. What are the chances of that? So obviously Undina's vSO had to photograph this uncanny coincidence...

'I'll raise you Pisanelle Pink!'

Les Senteurs

Undina's vSO sat on the famous stripey sofa to the rear of the store that is the ideal base for resting spouses, while Undina and I went for one last testing 'push', aided by the chatty and helpful Harley, who turned out to be proprietor Claire's niece. I daubed myself in Superstitious, the much talked about new release from Frederic Malle, in the hope that it would come up as prettily as on Tara; an hour or so into its development Undina and I remained to be convinced. I did come away with a sample to try further at my leisure, ditto one of ELDO's Fils de Dieu du Riz et des Agrumes, a bottle of which I definitely see in my future. Or more likely a split bottle with my friend Rachael Potts. I was also delighted to introduce Undina to Caron's Parfum Sacre, which I was hopeful she would like, and so it proved.

By five-ish we really were all sniffed out - okay, speaking for myself, I mean - for back at base, Undina went on to roll up a trouser leg and spray a sample I had brought for her to try on her knee (one of the few remaining clear spots left), before quickly rustling up a reviving meal of salmon and sour cream tortilla wraps. I will definitely try replicating that back home. I also extracted all Undina's blotters from between the leaves of my notebook where I was keeping them carefully separated for her, collected my luggage, and said my goodbyes. It was a real wrench, no question.

Not the ones we ate, but we discussed all meanings of 'tortilla'

Unfortunately, due to a conspicuous absence of tubes at Bayswater, I missed my (specific!) train back to Stafford. It took me eight conversations with staff at two rail companies and London Underground to extract a chit that confirmed the delay on the Circle Line (which they vehemently denied, but gave me the benefit of the doubt anyway!) to get my non-transferable ticket authorised for use on the next service, so I didn't have to buy a whole new single for the same money as my return. So that was a result, and only added an extra hour to my journey time.

So what did I learn over the course of the two days about the stage I am at in this hobby? Well, that I am somewhat less eager to try new scents than I was a few years ago, probably because I have so many things I feel I should use up first. However, I still have the capacity to get excited about new perfumes (and even crave bottles of them), though I might struggle to integrate them into my oversized collection without pangs of guilt.

And I also had further confirmation - not that it was needed - that it's the people in our perfume world who matter most. And that while fragrance is the catalyst for our bonding, if you took it away, the friendships would still have a momentum of their own...

NB Val gave me this bunny via Tara. It didn't make it beyond Rugby.