Housekeeping - And House Leaving - Issues, And Penhaligon's Juniper Sling Revisited

Readers may have noticed that my posts on Bonkers have become a little less frequent in the past month or so.  Lately I have also been forgetting to wear perfume for up to three days at a time, which - as anyone who knows me knows - is decidedly out of character.  When I wrote this post on reasons to be scentless, I thought I had covered off all the scenarios not conducive to perfume wearing - death, sickness etc - but now I have come up with another: a pending house move. 

Yes, after nearly 17 years, it is the parting of the ways for me and Mr Bonkers: he is staying put, while I am moving to the new Bonkers Towers, a creeper-clad Edwardian semi closer to the centre of town.  After consulting with the vet, I opted to take Charlie Bonkers with me - she is making good progress with her programme of "transitional litter tray retraining" in the run up to the move, and the vet is confident that she will adapt to her new surroundings, notwithstanding her great age (17).  Unfortunately, being deaf, she makes enough of a racket now with her random outbursts of blood curdling miaowing that if she was finding it hard to adjust to the new house I am afraid I would be none the wiser.

So anyway, I thought I should mention this major piece of news, because I am aware that not only is my posting schedule more intermittent, but there is the chance that I may get overtaken by events at any moment and go completely quiet for a week at a time - possibly longer in the immediate aftermath of the move, as I shall doubtless be without broadband for a while.  All this also means that I have not been able to do as much reading of other people's blogs as I would like, but it is, as they say: "just a phase that I am going through".  I have a pipeline of post ideas just waiting for me to stop collecting empty boxes from supermarkets, stalking sofas on Ebay, negotiating who gets custody of the coffee table and the toaster, and notifying all, sundry - and doubtless a few other people I have forgotten - about my imminent change of address.

And somewhere in my hectic round of dealings with solicitors, estate agents, insurance brokers, IFAs, Ebay couriers and removal companies, I have been finding solace in two activities in particular: googling designer scatter cushions and wallpaper swatches.  I am a veritable demon at speed swatch scrolling, appraising hundreds of designs in a few minutes.  Oh, and I have also been looking at paint, but lately it has been more in the way of fabrics and wallpaper, in the possibly mistaken belief that it is easier to match a paint to a preferred textile or wallpaper pattern than the other way about.  I find myself repeatedly drawn to the same categories, to wit trailing florals, damasks and geometrics.  The latter include a number of patterns from the Art Deco era.

So there I am, indulging in a spot of therapeutic wallpaper surfing, when the postman brought me a complimentary bottle of Juniper Sling courtesy of those nice people at Penhaligon's.  My first thought was: "How kind of them", and my second thought was: "How fitting for the new house."  For Juniper Sling was inspired by the "Roaring Twenties", as Jovan Buac, Account Director at jkr, the design agency behind the packaging, explains on the company's blog:

"The brief was very clear on the mood and emotion we wanted Juniper Sling to conjure up from a design point of view.  It’s about gin cocktails in the 1920’s, bright young things and art deco nuances.”

His production colleague, Judith Allan, takes up the theme of haptics:

“This design is all about tactility and layering, but with simplicity at the heart of the design. The paper stock is tactile whilst the use of silver foils and varnishes helps create a luxurious feel."

So, given that the arrival of this bottle of Juniper Sling exactly coincides with my newfound interest in Art Deco and other retro styles of wallpaper, you may imagine that I studied the specific pattern on the Penhaligon's box with particular interest...  You see, I felt sure I had come across it somewhere in all my online research, but couldn't recall where.  In vain did I scour the catalogues of the likes of Osborne & Little, Sanderson, Zoffany and Harlequin - I found a number of Art Deco patterns along similar lines, but not the exact one in question, and assumed my memory was playing tricks.  I even scrutinised the "spire" of the Chrysler building to make sure that wasn't where Penhaligon's got its pattern from, but drew a (pointed!) blank.

Then, in one of those bonkers impulses to which I am prone, I emailed Jovan Buac himself, and inquired about the identity of the Art Deco pattern used on the Penhaligon's box, assuming that it was something in the public domain, or which he wouldn't mind my mentioning in public.

The following day, I received this response:

"Hi Vanessa

You won't find the pattern anywhere as, although it is based on art deco inspired design, it has been drawn up by one of our illustrators."

Well well, I thought, no wonder I couldn't find it then.  I wrote back, thanking Jovan for this information and - in case you are wondering - didn't push my luck by inquiring where exactly they HAD taken their inspiration from, even if the finished design was original.

So there you have it: new house, new start, "christened" by new bottle of perfume inspired by era of said house.  The last month or two have not been easy for either of us, but I seem to be faring better than I would have expected - there was a mobile health clinic in the town centre today, and out of curiosity I had my blood pressure taken, and it was resoundingly normal. 

Oh, and speaking of blood, did you know that there is a wallpaper with a pattern based on the crystal structure of insulin, and a dress fabric inspired by haeomoglobin...?

Insulin 8.25 (wallpaper)
Crystallographer: Dorothy Hodgkin; designed by Robert Sevant for John Line and Sons

Haemoglobin 8.26 (fabric)
Crystallographer: Max Perutz

Oh, and tonight I had one last google, looking for the similar wallpaper to Juniper Sling that I thought I had seen, and I did come up with this one - Cinema, by Graham & Brown, based on the arches of Art Deco cinemas.  The proportions are different - it is a looser "weave", if you will - and it more of a cream colour, obviously, but the resemblance is otherwise compelling.  Yes, I wonder if this could be the one that inspired the jkr design team?  As I say, I have looked at an awful lot of wallpaper lately... : - )

Juniper Sling pattern