Sniffing Through A Glass Darkly: Failing A Bonkers Herb Garden Challenge

I have been called many things in my time: there was the disgruntled reader who dubbed me "God's mistake", and the ex-boyfriend who exclaimed in frustration, as I failed to grasp the operation of his camera: "You haven't got a brain, you've just got a memory!" Yes, down the years most of my personality traits and abilitiies have been called into question, from my imagination to my sense of spatial awareness to my very sanity. Yet for some reason no one has yet cast aspersions on my nasal prowess (or not publicly, or that I have noticed! : - ) ). And this despite my presuming to be a perfume blogger with only the sketchiest of abilities when it comes to picking out individual notes in scents. I offer a pretty impressionistic idea of how a fragrance smells, yet hopefully add another random object to the overall "collage" of perfume reviews in the blogosphere.

And then today my friend Gillie set me what turned out to be a fiendish fragrant challenge. She gave me a birthday present wrapped in stiff white paper and placed in a white gauze bag - between the paper and the bag she had inserted a selection of leaves from different herbs and asked me to identify them blind. Well, not even blind in fact, for if I recognised the look of any of them that was of course another way of skinning the cat, albeit slightly cheating in what was billed as a sniffing test.

THE OUTER BAG

So without further ado, here are the woeful results of my scented guesswork.

ROSEMARY - I said THYME

SAGE - I had no clue

LEMON BALM - I also had no clue, though it smelt a bit lemony after Gillie had revealed what it was; this may be significant ie as further confirmation of my shamelessly suggestible schnoz.

LAVENDER - I said OREGANO (for goodness' sake!)

THE HERB GARDEN

PARSLEY - I recognised it by eye, haha.

CORIANDER - As above!

LEMON-SCENTED GERANIUM - I had no clue again.

THYME - Gillie blurted out the answer by accident. : - )

MINT - As above (though I feel sure I would have got this one right of my own accord!)

THE RECORD SHEET

So in summary, out of seven herbs where I was not in fact alerted to the answer before I could pit my finely blunted wits against the question, I got a derisory TWO correct, and those only because I knew what they looked like, and didn't even get as far as smelling them.

In my defence, Gillie said I should have crushed a few of the leaves more vigorously in my fingers, as that would have given off more of an aroma, and me a better clue. And as inept as my nose patently is - and my culinary skills, by association! - I did discover some great new smells, notably lemon-scented geranium and lemon balm. Gillie assures me that lemon-scented geranium in particular is therapeutic for people undergoing any kind of trauma. Possibly also including this very confirmation that I am a perfume blogger without portfolio, or two nasal receptors to rub together, say!

Finally, here is a picture of Gillie relaxing in the garden, and posing with the submarine battery glass to which my nose is pressed in the photo at the top of the post. Yes, forget water features and architectural lighting, patio heaters or a barbecue tastefully screened by a thicket of pampas grass, a submarine battery glass is the must-have garden accessory for summer 2012.