It is ages since I last wrote a post in the Frantic Antics series - namely this sorry tale about my brush with the arcane postal service in Slovenia, back when swapping and RAOKs were a big part of the international perfume scene. I was moved to take up the theme of fumehead favours again following an elaborate operation to transport a package of perfume samples from Wales to Stafford and (a year later!) transport a subset of the package from Stafford to Chipping Norton in Oxfordshire...
This all came about when Tamsin Simmill - a stalwart of the swapping scene some 10-15 years ago who also famously "crashed" Cake Club at my house in 2013 - kindly offered to "custom purchase" a travel size vial of my beloved Cimabue by Dawn Spencer Hurwitz, as she lives in the States and could therefore take delivery of the perfume - from memory the company only offered domestic shipping. Shortly afterwards, on her visit to the UK, Tamsin would deliver it in person to our mutual friend Lisa Jones (aka Wordbird) in South Wales. (Lisa has featured several times in my Swiss travel and perfume reports around 2010, back when she used to live over there. I can't recall exactly where Lisa lives now, not that it is strictly relevant, other than that - being Wales - it is rather hard to spell.)
So Tamsin met up with Lisa at L's house, and handed over my perfume for her to post onto me while she continued on her travels. Lisa kindly did just that, but when the parcel arrived, to my surprise it contained not just my 5ml rollerball of Cimabue, but a substantial bag of other samples, none of which had anything to do with me. Following an exchange with Tamsin, it transpired that she had mistakenly also given the bag of perfumes she had bought for herself to Lisa. We agreed that the next time Tamsin was over in Europe we would organise some way of getting the samples back to her, rather than my risking sending them to her in North Carolina, only to have them go astray or incur punitive customs charges.
Thus it was that a year later Tamsin announced her latest visit to the UK, and a plan was hatched for the repatriation of her perfumes. I had kept them in a cool dark drawer for all that time, with a Post-it note inside the organza bag clearly labelled "TAMSIN". On this trip, she was planning to visit a friend who lives in Chipping Norton, just half a mile from my friend Nicola. Conveniently, Alison, a mutual friend of mine and Nicola's, happened to be visiting the latter just days before Tamsin was due to see her friend up the road. So I entrusted the package to Alison in good time ahead of her stay, and also sent her a series of reminders to remember to put it in her travel bag - and take it out again(!). (At her request, I hasten to add.) On 11/9 Alison arrived in Nicola's village with the package, and together the two of them visited Tamsin's friend Helene and effected the handover. They were intrigued by the gravity of the mission, and joked between themselves that there may have been something else in the parcel that was rather more valuable and shady than perfume...;)
So there you have it: the delivery chain looks something like this, with only one leg of the journey (from Lisa to me) involving the dreaded Royal Mail, which always feels like a win.
Tamsin - Lisa - Vanessa - Alison - Nicola - Helene - Tamsin
