From "Dead man in garage" to "Rather odd boyfriend": tantalising snippets from my mother's book book

Today is the 25th anniversary of my mother's death. This isn't going to be a tribute post as such - I have already written one of those, on the occasion of the 11th anniversary. It is true, however, that an item belonging to my mother has inspired this post...to wit, her book log / book diary? / book book?!. This is a small hardbacked notebook in which she used to write down every title she had read in recent years. I don't know how far it goes back exactly, as there are no dates next to the entries, but she was clearly jotting things down in it right up till her death. (I will explain how I know in a bit...)

Taking a leaf out of my mother's book (no pun intended), I have kept a similar record myself for the past 15 years, and have been reading quite a lot lately. Michael Mosley (the ubiquitous TV doctor) has included "reading fiction" in his list of "just one things" that are beneficial for our health - in this case because it supposedly staves off dementia. I must say I don't need any encouragement to pick up a book, unlike some of his other exhortations, such as cold water showers, playing video games, or fasting, but it is nice to know that reading is not simply a stimulating escape into other worlds, but good for the old grey matter. I do find it harder to follow plots now than I used to, mind. I get so far into a book and come across a reference to Dorothy's bad leg, say, when I have no recollection of who Dorothy is, never mind an issue with either of her legs; this invariably has me flicking back fifty pages to see if I can find an earlier reference I must have missed. 

I read 40 books last year in fact, and will mention some of my favourites here (they are not all fiction, to be fair). It is a pretty mixed bag...or, as the Germans say, "diagonally across the garden":

Bill Bryson - The Road To Little Dribbling

Dorothy Max Prior - 69 Exhibition Road 

David Sedaris - Me Talk Pretty Some Day

Laurent Gounelle - Le Réveil

Philippa Perry - The Book You Want Everyone You Love To Read

Mitch Albom - For One More Day

Lionel Shriver - Should We Stay Or Should We Go?

Lucy Atkins - The Night Visitor

Shari Lapena - The Couple Next Door

Molly Keane - Loving And Giving

Going back to Mother's notebook, there were a few symbols to decipher: a tick means she has acquired a book, then the tick is turned into a cross when she has read it. 

She also writes where she heard about each title ("Times", "Telegraph", "S.T. (Sunday Times), "Spectator" - and occasionally me - "Van"), notes down the price, and often adds a comment. Some books my mother admits she didn't finish, and there are quite a few mentions of not being able to get into a story, or not being in the mood for a particular style of novel: I should add that she was ill throughout this period, and it is possible that the treatment she was undergoing could have affected her stamina / interests.

Without further ado, here is a selection of her intriguing mini-synopses ;):

"Lesbian's Foxy (sic) interspersed with torturing deaf boy next door."

"Set in E Coast resort. Moslems and murder. Stars Barbara Havers."

"19th C magician used by French to sabotage Algeria."

"US woman wanting to escape 4 men in family."

"NZ novel couldn't read."

"Dead sister - heroine seeks regression."

"18th C man who felt no pain." - I can recommend that one myself!, by Andrew Miller. Has a feel of The Miniaturist about it.

And finally:

"Women has three men but gets rid of them to Dublin."

I also chanced across a postcard I had sent my mother in March '86, where I am talking about a book she must have recommended to me - no idea what it was, though my curiosity is piqued now. 

"So glad Edith tore up the letter in the end - much better to have so small a ration of great happiness than a whole lifetime of mediocrity if she'd married that smug Swindon businessman!"

Then over Christmas I decided to see how many of the books featured in my mother's book book I had read myself, and interestingly there were a good 15 or so - we had similar taste it seems.

As for how I know the notebook was up-to-date, this is to do with one of the later entries,"The Breaker" by Minette Walters, which is marked as unread. I had sent it to my mother as a present, as it had just come out and hadn't yet reached the hospital library, and when I finally made it to the hospital in Oxford on the day she died, I spotted my handwriting on a parcel at the nurses' station. The book had arrived, but Mother had not opened it. I took it home with me again, but couldn't bring myself to broach it for a long time afterwards. The last book Mother finished was "Eleven Hours" by Paullina Simons, which was one of the titles we had in common. I bought a used copy the other day with a view to rereading it sometime...

Do you keep a book book / log / diary, and if so, what the heck do you call it? ;)

How many books a year are you managing to read, and what would be any recent top picks?

Mother Much Missed - An Anniversary Tribute

Today is the 14th anniversary of my mother's death. I find it hard to credit that it could be so long ago now. I was still in my 30s when she died - what are these years called "30s"? I can barely recall. So to mark the occasion, I shall go in search of some yellow tulips (her favourite colour), which will serve as a very springlike counterpoint to the latest blanket of snow all around.

With each passing year I feel a keen sense of sadness that my mother never knew me as a person with a "proper interest in perfume", as opposed to the giver of thoughtless fragrance gifts depicted in my earlier post about her. How my careless behaviour still makes me squirm! And I wish I had paid more attention to the scented products she used, though Lentheric Tweed fragrance, Bronnley lemon soap and Yardley honeysuckle talc have lodged in my mind. And she had lily of the valley for her wedding bouquet, I do know that.

I am pretty sure Mother would have liked the new Bonkers Towers - I now also regret selling her walnut bureau and one or two other fine pieces of antique furniture! But we lived in a modern house at the time and I never thought that one day I might have a use for period furnishings myself.

But never mind the material trappings of our family life - mostly I just miss her terribly for the lovely, caring person that she was. The dwindling numbers of her (now very ancient!) contemporaries never fail to mention Mother in Christmas cards and emails - here is one touching reference from this year.

"I cannot help recalling how, when I first moved here, I had the joy of the company of several old friends of my childhood, Peggy being the most important one. I still miss her very much. Such a humorous, wise, tolerant and lovable person. We would often meet for a meal together at each other's home. Such happy times."

So this post is dedicated to anyone who has lost a parent and misses them. And especially to anyone who feels they would have done some things differently if they had their time over. In the case of my own mother, I should have bought her a Boots token at the very least.

Lenthéric Tweed: Am I Fabric-ating False Memories Of My Mother?

My mother would have been 92 this year. That is old, but by no means unusual these days: my aunt is 91 and my dad's cousin just turned 92, and celebrated by selling her life's work of paintings in one go (76 at the last count!).

But sadly, my mother died 13 years ago today, when she was 78. She had really hoped to make it to 80, but it was not to be. I miss her as keenly now as if it were yesterday. In a post in 2010 on Bonkers, I wrote about my mother's death and reflected back on her "scented past" - pretty threadbare basically - and not helped by a thoughtless Christmas gift of Rochas Byzance from me. I thought it worth linking back to it on this, her "anniversary", as Bonkers was even smaller back then, and some readers may have missed it. Apart from anything, it is notable for being a rare example of a Bonkers post written in a sombre and largely unfacetious tone.

Since I wrote it, I sought out a purse spray of Lenthéric Tweed, which is the perfume I think she wore of her own accord. I certainly remember seeing a chequered tin of the talcum powder, and had a notion that my mother also owned the perfume. I am not sure of the exact vintage of the one I managed to find on Ebay - it may not be quite old enough - but it certainly doesn't smell contemporary. It has that forbidding, rather manly, chypre quality to it of its Lenthéric stable mate, Style, or perhaps of Cabochard. I say "chypre" - Fragrantica describe the base as "oriental" - and looking at the notes it does seem to have a foot in both camps. I couldn't find a single "proper" review of Tweed, which in itself may be significant.

Top notes - bergamot, cinnamon and geranium
Middle notes - ylang-ylang, jasmine, lavender and orange flower
Basenotes - oakmoss, patchouli, sandalwood, benzoin, vanilla and vetiver

Hmm, the notes do look a bit austere to me. I was going to say "dog's breakfast", but that might sound disrespectful. I sprayed it on last night and again this morning, and it wasn't for me. I could imagine it being the signature scent of a very strict maths mistress with her hair scraped back into a bun, if she wore any perfume at all. Though that wasn't my mother at all - quite the opposite. I don't mean she couldn't count or anything - I am talking about the severity aspect. There again, Tweed does smell outdoorsy and a little masculine, and my mother loved the rugged scenery, rough fabrics and sludgy colours of the West of Ireland, which I think it does rather conjure up. And I am probably being unfair to it - Tweed is just of its time, and that style was simply too green / sharp / mossy for my taste.

So I don't really want to associate Tweed with my mum after all. Or maybe just the talcum powder, which I think was innocuous enough. And nor do I want to associate her with Rochas Byzance particularly. And when I cleared out her house I also found a bottle of Opium, which still smells good today. How did she come by that? I will never know.

So I guess I will just have to accept that I have this passionate perfume interest now, and I also have many happy memories of my mother. However, good - and genuine - perfume memories of her may forever elude me.


Photo of tweed fabric from harristweedshop.ocm, other photos my own

Rochas Byzance: A Retro Soapfest 'Clouded' In Mystery

When I look back at my relationship with my mother, whom I still miss keenly 11 years on, there are many things I regret. I regret the fact that I didn't visit her more often in the last year of her life (if only I had known that that was the last year of her life - her sudden death caught even her doctors on the hop, as she died with, but not strictly of cancer). She was always so upbeat and independent that it was easy to forget how ill she really was, and carry on with your own life in a fairly normal way. Though perhaps that was how she wanted it...

This may explain why, for example, she banned all visitors on what turned out to be her last weekend - because she had drips up her nose and "didn't look dignified" ie "normal". We had an elderly cat who went off one morning, lay down in the raspberry canes, and died. He appeared to have opted for a discreet exit with minimal fuss or trouble to his owners. I sometimes think of Mother as having disappeared into the raspberry canes for similar reasons, and I regret not overruling her wish not to be seen looking her best at the end. And of course I regret the fact that I didn't just jump in the car on that final morning and drive to the hospital in Oxford, inferring from my many unanswered phone calls to the ward that something was seriously up. By the time a doctor picked up the phone, she had one minute left to live, and I was over 100 miles away.

So that is the big stuff I regret. But there are other, lesser things too: I am sorry now that I never took the time to learn more culinary skills from her (I can make a roux, but man shall not live by béchamel sauce alone), or to learn more about plant care. Or more about her colourful seafaring ancestors. I do know (for I have the tape of a BBC radio broadcast on the subject from 1968) that her great aunt and two male companions (one of them her husband) were the first people to circumnavigate Africa in a small boat - "at a time before such journeys in small boats were commonplace". Mistress of understatement, my mum.

And finally, finally, I regret giving her Rochas Byzance for Christmas once...

Yes, the perfumista person that I have become is a little ashamed of that. I had just started dating Mr Bonkers, and was self-absorbed and distracted. It was an ill-considered, selfish purchase. Selfish because it was the result of a one minute foray in Boots, something quickly grabbed from a heap of seasonal boxed sets. I had no idea what Byzance smelt like, or whether Mother would like it - or whether I would. Yes, to my shame, another motive for buying that particular set was the miniature bottle that was the Gift With Purchase, which I kept...

So it was a lazy and thoughtless gift, which my mother accepted with her usual good grace. But - and this is the $64,000 question - did she ever wear it? I don't know what became of the mini, but I acquired a decant of Byzance recently to remind myself of how this fragrance smells.

Well, on first impression it is a soapy floral number that is rather reminiscent of Rive Gauche - the soapiness creates a "cloudy" aura to it. And whilst not overtly soapy, other similarly cloudy perfumes to mention would be Fendi Palazzo (particularly Palazzo) and YSL Cinema. They envelop the wearer in a perfumey - yet diaphanous - fug. Now I don't mean a cloud of powder, or any kind of fuzzy, aldehydic whooshing geyser type of effect (though there are aldehydes in there), nor do I mean the type of aquatic, freshly vacated shower cubicle sort of cloud either, for which Issey Miyake's scents are noted. Why, they even have one called "L'Eau d'Issey Goutte d'une Nuage", though it was in and out of the shops quicker than the length of an average shower. No, Byzance is a non-powdery, non-water droplet sort of cloud, if that means anything at all to anyone (and it very may well not).

Without further ado, here are the notes for Byzance, which was launched in 1987, the year my mother moved into my old house in Wiltshire, which we co-owned until her death. The noses behind this fragrance are Nicolas Mamounas and Alberto Morillas. Morillas is a familiar name with a string of hit fragrances under his belt, but I had to look up Mamounas, to find he has only created four scents, all for Parfums Rochas. Byzance is variously described on the Interweb as a "floral chypre", a "sharp oriental" and a "semi-oriental". Given the busyness of the note list, I can see why there might be room for manoeuvre:

ROCHAS BYZANCE

Top notes: aldehydes, spices, carnation, green notes, mandarin orange, basil, citruses, cardamom and lemon
Middle notes: tuberose, orris root, jasmine, turkish rose, ylang-ylang, lily-of-the-valley and anise
Base notes: sandalwood, amber, musk, vanilla, heliotrope and cedar.

Once the soapy cloud settles down, it isn't half bad actually, though by no means my usual thing. Interestingly, Luca Turin awards Byzance four stars in Perfumes: The Guide, and he too likens it to Rive Gauche, though I swear I noticed the resemblance myself before looking this one up!

"Rive Gauche with Indian ornaments, like a good French girl playing dress-up..."

He goes on to speak of its original "dreamy, liquid, heavy-limbed feeling" having been reduced through reformulation to "the damp shine of white bathrom tile". Oh look, he is in cloudy territory too, although he appears to lean to the water droplet variety!

So...... did I ever catch a whiff of sillage from my mother that smelt like this? No, I did not. The only other perfume I remember her wearing (by choice) when I was growing up was Lenthéric Tweed, which is a very different proposition. As I wrote of Tweed in a Mother's Day post on Cafleurebon back in May:

"(My mother) loved the West of Ireland, with its craggy landscapes, peat fires and palette of sludgy greys and browns, and a scent inspired by a rough fabric was the perfect choice for her."

LENTHERIC TWEED

Top notes: bergamot, cinnamon and geranium.
Middle notes: ylang-ylang, jasmine, lavender and orange flower.
Base notes: oakmoss, patchouli, sandalwood, benzoin, vanilla, vetiver.

Okay...so there is a bit of crossover there - sandalwood, vanilla and three of the floral notes - but my recollection of Tweed is of a more brisk, outdoorsy, woody kind of scent, while Byzance is the scent of the harem, or perhaps of Roja Dove's sumptuous cushion-stuffed boudoir at the Haute Parfumerie in Harrods.

So, you know, what was I thinking of, giving Mother Byzance? Well, that is just it - I wasn't thinking. How I would love to be able to pick out scents for her now, which I would do with loving care and a modicum of knowledge. Knowing that that will never happen saddens me too.

To sum up, while many perfumistas have written eloquently and touchingly before me about the scents they associate with their mothers, ie the scents their mothers WORE, Byzance is different. Byzance is the scent my mother DIDN'T WEAR. Yet it is inevitably one I will remember her by, because I gave it to her, however carelessly. It is a poignant reminder of all the things I didn't do for her while she was around.

Yes, what my mother really thought of this perfume I will never know. To call it a Byzantine riddle would perhaps be an overstatement, but I can see myself puzzling over the matter for the rest of my perfumista days.


PS Thoughts go out to Josephine of Notes from Josephine, who lost her mother earlier this year.

Photo of boxed set of Byzance from parfumuriok.com, photo of Tweed poster from Cafleurebon, photos of my mother from family albums.