The Isabel Trail: a spontaneously circuitous sillage-seeking cycle ride

Source: visitstafford.org

There's no more news to report of the war on Tootsie...well, other than the fact that I have swapped the positions of Truffle's water and food bowls around - so the food bowl is now by the entrance to the dining room, and hence that bit further for an incorrigible cat burglar to venture in pursuit of kibble contraband. Truffle seems mightily perplexed by the switch, and has taken to staking out her water bowl, lounging pointedly just in front of it and shooting me disapproving glances over one shoulder, even as I crouch a few feet away, rattling the contents of her newly relocated food station. Oh, and I also had occasion to chase Tootsie out of the garden and down the service road by the side of my house at 2.20am on Saturday morning, Anti-Cat in hand. He hunkered down under a white van for a while, before sprinting towards a garden wall on his own street and leaping over it to safety, so nary a squirt was fired. If there are any major developments, however, I will be sure to report back!

Source: Stafford Borough Council

Meanwhile, I have decided to get off my backside this summer and do some exercise. No, really. I know I include some variant of the 'exercise more!' imperative in my New Year's post with monotonous regularity - albeit it was couched as generating 'teeming neurons' this year - but you may be sure it is the  same hoary old resolution chestnut that is safe to disregard, just as I do. But a July resolution smacks of something more serious. Various things have conspired to make me feel like shaking a leg a bit more: I had my bike fixed recently, which set me back £75 for a new tyre and two inner tubes, so I feel I should get my money's worth from that repair; also Val the Cookie Queen of APJ has been bigging up the health benefits of squats recently, such that I have even started to do some sets every time I reheat my tea in the microwave (which is quite often!). Then on Sunday I also happened to take some promo photos of ex-Mr Bonkers, posing with a new gig bag he's bought - they are to be included in his application to the manufacturer to be one of their product 'endorsers'. As a thank you he offered to give me back the home gym I had given him some 17 years ago(!), which he has not used in all that time. I had in fact been thinking lately that even though I barely do exercise of any kind myself at the moment - apart from a fairly fitful attendance at a Pilates class - I do even less of anything resembling weight training, so I jumped at his offer.

Source: productreview.com.au

With all these good intentions whirring round in my brain, I leapt out of bed this morning and got dressed to go for a jog. Only to find that the soles of both my trainers were hanging off and will need professional gluing by a cobbler. Okay, it's a bike ride then! Accordingly, I found myself uncharacteristically cycling the length and length (it's not very broad) of the Isabel Trail, a cycle path that weaves its way between the industrial estates of Stafford, from the northern perimeter of the town down to somewhere south of the middle. The path is overhung in places by a canopy of trees, and if it weren't for the intermittent cacophony of industrial noises emanating from factory units left and right, you could easily fancy yourself in the country!

Source: Google Sites

Occasionally I would overtake a jogger, or a walker on the path, including at one point a mature lady dressed in what I took to be the uniform of the Royal Voluntary Service, though I wouldn't swear to that. She wore a bottle green skirt and a button down white blouse, topped off with a lanyard, and seemed set on walking to the very end of the path. As I went up and down the trail, revelling in the faux-rural feel in the midst of an urban area, I passed this lady from both directions, When I came up from behind I could distinctly smell her perfume, though not when I cycled past her going the other way. Intrigued by her pleasantly powdery sillage, I made a point of cycling up and down even more(!) to catch further whiffs of whatever it was she was wearing. Eventually, it struck me that she might be a little alarmed by my repeated overtaking manoeuvres, so I decided to come clean the next time I approached, and ask her straight out what she was wearing.

A little side path I also rode down ~ Source: Jim Fogarty

"Kenzo Flowers!" the lady replied cheerily, to which I replied that I had the Oriental version, and that she smelt lovely in the original. "What a good start to a Monday!" I added, as much to apologise for my weird stalking as to compliment her on her choice of scent. She beamed back at me, and I was glad we had had that little exchange: my curiosity was satisfied and her morale boosted, or so it seemed - in short a win-win, as they say.

Once home, I went straight to the cupboard under the stairs and fished out my vial of Flower by Kenzo (to give it its official name) from a little plastic bag where it has been languishing for all of 8 years at a guess. I sprayed it on, and whilst I still prefer its darker and more edgy Oriental sibling, I can see why Tania Sanchez gave it a generous four stars, and why my go-to review resource of Bois de Jasmin (from whom I have pinched the notes) upped that to five.

Notes: "Wild hawthorn, Bulgarian rose, Parma violet, cassia, hedione, cyclosal, opoponax, white musk, vanilla."

In her review, Tania Sanchez mentions how Luca Turin spotted the striking resemblance between Flower by Kenzo and Caron's Royal Bain de Champagne, the bubble bath version of which I was kindly given by my friend Rachael Potts. I can totally see that connection, albeit Flower has more overt notes of rose and violet as far as I can recall, spiked with shafts of jasmine, like the sun dappling the path this morning through the tangle of trees. But that whole tender, expansive, vanilla / opoponax baby powder thing?...both scents have got it going on big style.

What is also interesting about this morning's events, apart from the Caron similarity which had hitherto passed me by, and for which I have the lady in green indirectly to thank, is that I could immediately visualise in which little polythene bag in which box my sample was lurking, even though I hadn't gone near it in years. Which got me wondering if anyone else reckons they have a photographic memory of their collection. I must say I surprised myself that I could drill down to the very plastic bag in question!

So...getting a bit of fresh air and exercise, and bonding with a Kenzo scent whose charms I had largely overlooked, was indeed a great way to kick off the week. I even sat at my desk with my feet on a spiky massage ball for a bit this morning.

Wherever will it all end? Doubled up in bed groaning? Yes, maybe...!