Further festive falling things and Christmas crises, plus an Excite-ing Lynx discovery!

Well, it isn't long since the tree felling and Fille en Aiguilles spilling incidents, yet I have managed to clock up a slew of additional mishaps - enough to warrant this 'festive malfunction' sequel post.

Though 'crises' may be overstating it for some of the things that didn't go to plan. Like the fact that I was too late to catch the particular brand of mince pies that came top in a Good Housekeeping tasting test, for example (Iceland, if you're curious - they are apparently 'astonishing'-ly good). But the substitutes I picked up on Christmas Eve from Sainsbury's served perfectly well in the end.

Other incidents had wider repercussions, like accidentally putting an egg in vegan stuffing I made for a friend, who was giving me some spare nut roast in return. Actually, it turns out that her two sons are currently merely vegetarian, however, it had quite slipped my mind that my friend herself is allergic to egg, so she ended up having to make her own stuffing. I have since made it up to her in parsnip and apple soup.

I also did that annoying thing - which in fairness can happen at any time of year - of going to the supermarket without the '£4 off when you spend £20 or more in store' voucher, only to go and spend £20.08. So of course I had to go back specially on the last day of the coupon's validity to spend another £20 and get my discount. Which in practice, to comfortably qualify, only needed to be a bottle of Olay Regenerist serum and one of dry white.

Back up curry that was not actually needed in the end

The Christmas meal itself - for my two dinner guests, Clare and her Man City Santa-hatted husband Tony - went like clockwork. Or a clock that is running a bit slow, say. For they arrived at 6pm and I didn't plate up the turkey and trimmings till 9.30pm. Though in that time my friends had enjoyed a pretty substantial starter (did they sense what was (not) to come? ;-) ) supplemented by an emergency saucer of something that had already cooked, to take the edge off their returning hunger. The problem was the parsnips, which for space reasons were late going into the oven, and then took forever to go golden. The turkey, meanwhile, had long since come out, and was relaxing on the worktop under a blanket of foil. It was so relaxed in fact that it was fast asleep, only to be rudely awakened by the jab of a carving knife (which Tony - who had stepped up to help me at this point - candidly declared to be 'a bit blunt'). I must say those parsnips look remarkably nonchalant in the photo, despite having massively held up proceedings.

There really is some gravy on there...

Also during the meal preparations, I managed to bang the back of my hand on the edge of the utility door and burn my finger, which swelled and throbbed for a day or so afterwards. But the main malfunction by far was my unerring knack of knocking glasses over. Or do I mean 'erring'? Anyway, it proved to be a comical leitmotiv of the evening. The first full glass (of champagne) went over the edge of the table, triggering a four handed flurry of floor mopping over quite an extensive area. The second full glass I sent flying prompted the complete removal of the gold tablecloth, which was absolutely soaked in red wine, and in turn started to drip down onto the same section of newly mopped floor. I swear I wasn't drunk or anything - why, I had knocked over most of the available alcohol, apart from anything! - it was just that there were a lot of hidden table mats under the cloth, making for different levels and an accident waiting to happen, basically. By the end of the night we were all agreed that it wasn't so much a table as a mezzanine. Then within minutes of my guests leaving I had spilt half a can of Diet Coke and rescued two tea cups that were perched at a very perilous angle. To be honest it was a minor miracle they didn't also hit the deck.

After a promising start, it all ended up on the floor.

My lack of a dishwasher could also be construed as a malfunction, as I washed up afterwards for two days straight...though that acquisition will have to wait until I revamp the kitchen one day. I was, however, comforted by the realisation that, contrary to what I think every time I open my utensil drawer, you can in fact never have too many spatulas.

So what perfume did I wear on Christmas Day, you may be wondering? Well, I did toy with putting on Estee Lauder Bronze Goddess, you know, to help the turkey along - it also has a hint of myrrh, even if it might not be seasonally appropriate in any other sense - but I went in the end with Bois des Iles, by way of a thank you to my generous donors, Val and Tara.

The other notable perfume-related thing to tell you about the holidays is that I sniffed a friend at a party the other night and was very taken with the discreet woody oriental scent he was wearing. You could have knocked me down with a feather when I learnt it was Lynx Excite of all things! Further research on the Interwebs confirms my impression that Excite is punching above its weight. The men on Basenotes also give it a thumbs up. I was certainly impressed at the olfactory gentrification of this hitherto cheap and cheerful 'yoof' range. Excite (just based on my hazy recall of my friend's neck) reminded me a little of a lighter version of L'Occitane's Eau des Baux, which I encountered in Germany earlier this year. The perfumer is Ann Gottlieb and this is all I could find by way of description - on Amazon!:

"This sophisticated scent starts with a clean and fresh leafy green accord, then develops to smoother, caramel based notes and finishes with woody base notes, laced with amber and vanilla." 

Source: lynxeffect.com

So on that surprising note, it just remains to thank Bonkers readers everywhere for your interest and support in 2014, and to wish everyone a very Happy New Year! A special thanks is due to follower No 168 (Sarah), who recently replaced one I lost the other day for reasons I will probably never know. I have said it before, but I can't over-emphasise how nice it is to see the avatar of a new follower pop up in my side bar. As I understand it, you still have to consciously follow a Blogger blog to be counted amongst its official audience, so I do appreciate people taking that extra step.

Clare & Santa-Tony, a born again Man City fan who almost matches the sofa

Dropping pine needle perfumes and other festive malfunctions

The countdown to Christmas has begun. Well, strictly speaking - as far as the retailers are concerned anyway - it started some time in October, if not before, but I have definitely entered my pre-Christmas 'Oh, my goodness, I missed the last posting date for second class cards and I haven't wrapped anything and will all the chestnuts be sold out already?' headless chicken - I mean turkey - phase. And every year there is a new challenge involving the festive bird, as I always think there is a perfect cooking method still out there that is just beyond my grasp. The other day ex-Mr Bonkers inquired jovially: 'So is it going to be the Nigella brined or the tented foil Delia method - or some bet-hedging combination of the two, more like?' He has vivid memories of one Christmas morning where I additionally spent a frantic half hour googling which way round the legs of the turkey should point in the oven. I have in fact abandoned whole turkeys in recent years, gravitating towards the more manageably sized crown joints. But even though last year's bird was succulently successful, there will as ever be a twist this year, namely that I plan to use a probe thermometer to check the turkey's temperature. So I have been busy googling where to insert the thermometer I have yet to buy, given that there are no legs and the traditional spot of between leg and breast is not an option.

Time to get the shiny Roja Dove coffee table book out

But Christmas is about far more varied and numerous malfunctions than just the turkey. The mishaps kicked off last Sunday in fact - it took six hours from sallying forth with my friend Gillie in search of a tree for each of us to switching the lights on mine and declaring it decorated. For having brought my tree home, I quickly established that the trunk was too fat and knobbly to fit into the stand I already had. I attacked the trunk with a toy saw, then an axe, but to no avail. So I went collecting rocks on the allotments and put them in a silver pail, which I thought would serve as well. It didn't, and the tree toppled over, 'felling' me in the process, and smearing greenish mud on my sofa. I dabbed the offending patch with damp kitchen roll, which seems to have fetched the worst off. Then I went out and bought another, wider stand, and things started to pick up from there.

The next day, however, I was experimenting with a string of fairy lights in the hall, when I knocked my bicycle over, gouging out a small piece of the wood panelling under the stairs, just a few mm to the left of the previous gouging wound from an identical bike-knocking incident last year. The bike has now been banished in disgrace to the corridor behind the kitchen.

Oh, and my pretty Chanel Christmas card that was the last present to me from ex-Mr Bonkers appears to have lost some of its dangly charms. ;(

But some good things have happened as well this week, relating to perfume and Christmas, you will be pleased to hear. Even a fragrance-related accident proved to be a happy one. For yesterday I spilt a vial of Serge Lutens Fille en Aiguilles on the mantlepiece.

Luckily, it didn't attack the paintwork as I feared, just leaving a slight shadow of a stain. This in turn gave me the bright idea of smearing the puddle of Fille en Aiguilles on a small wooden tree ornament Gillie had recently given me - as in one shaped like a tree, not intended to go on the tree - and now it smells wonderfully piney and aromatic, a bit like your better class of sauna.

Out of the blue this week I also received a medallion-shaped tree ornament from Sarah McCartney of 4160 Tuesdays, perfumed with a trio of scents: frankincense, myrrh and citrus.

It looks uncannily like a ceramic Love Heart for anyone familiar with that nostalgic confectionery line - well, you can still get them, actually. I have a tube in my handbag indeed.

And in addition to the 'bridging decant' Tara slipped me at the Les Senteurs event I attended the other week, I have now received two further atomisers of Bois des Iles from Val the Cookie Queen. I know I mentioned that I had run out in an earlier post, but it genuinely wasn't a sneaky way of 'crowdsourcing' some top up supplies, honest! But now I have supplies all the same, and am very grateful to both.

Oh  look, I have just noticed the sticker on the back of one of the vials, keeping our heart theme going...;)

As this is probably my last post before Christmas, I would like to take the opportunity of wishing readers near and far a very Happy Christmas-stroke-Holidays-stroke-Bah Humbug let's just go for a curry! (as per linked post below). I hope all your perfume gifts - should you receive any - are what you wanted. For further reading on this theme, here is a link to my post from four years ago for Cafleurebon on the subject of Christmas present giving and attitudes to the festive season generally.

In that article I note that I include a 'gravy separator' as one of my worst ever gifts. How times change! Why, a gravy separator is on my current Christmas list. So what the heck did I do with the one I already had...? ;)