"She and Salv": two train-themed perfume mini-stories with a surreal soapy twist

The other day I heard I was going to be awarded a partial refund of £11.86 by CrossCountry Trains, to compensate me for missing my connection on a journey that seems like a lifetime, but was only in fact some seven weeks ago. I got very excited by this, for together with the £15 proceeds from selling an old half tin of paint to a friend of ex-Mr Bonkers, that's pretty much it for income at the moment.

And the email made me think back to the glorious era of train travel - or any travel indeed - and to a couple of perfume-related incidents which happened this year, one on a train in fact. In the first case I found myself sitting next to a lady of my own age give or take, when she suddenly fished a canister of YSL Rive Gauche out of her handbag, upended it, and proceeded to use the shiny metal base as a compact mirror to apply lipstick. The resourcefulness and nonchalance behind this gesture impressed me in equal measure, and I couldn't help but strike up a conversation with her, starting with a comment to the effect that you don't often come across people wearing Rive Gauche these days. My fellow passenger, who introduced herself as 'She' (you can readily guess what Christian name that was short for), was fulsome in her praise of Rive Gauche, which was no less than her signature scent. She was so worried that it might be discontinued that she had recently bought a back up bottle at Manchester airport, so we chatted a bit about that dismal phenomenon (discontinuing perfumes, I mean, not the airport, of which I have nothing but fond memories). I learnt that she was recently retired and off to see her sister, 'Mad' (you can guess her name too with relative ease!). There was a third sister, also with an amusing contraction, but it has slipped my mind now. Anyway, I had great fun shooting the fragrant breeze with She for as long as our journeys coincided. And no, Vanessa, it's not "shooting the fragrant breeze with Her", even if that is your understandable instinct.

The same weekend, I was given a present by a fellow fan of The Monochrome Set of a vintage set of Salvador Dali miniatures. I didn't inspect the contents of the box till the following day (on another train!), and it afforded that special kind of delight associated with small, secret things, somewhere between a doll's house, a shape sorting toy, and an advent calendar.

There were two perfumes from the 80s: a daytime diva-ish floral, and an evening diva-ish oriental, plus a tiny bar of soap, perfumed bath oil, and body cream - all of them shaped like Dali's trademark lips. That should perhaps be 'mouth of soap' then. The perfumed body cream container had a dear little swivelly lid like a sugar bowl that only fits snugly in one position, while the other three had pull off tops like the spikes atop a wrought iron gate.

At a guess the body cream is past its best, but still smells rich and opulent, as does the bath oil. You can hear a little bit swishing about if you shake it.

Thanks to Basenotes, I have found the notes for the perfumes, both by Alberto Morillas and launched in 1983:

Parfum (the orange coloured one):

Frankincense, bergamot, clove, rose, jasmine, mimosa, sandalwood, patchouli, oakmoss, musk

Parfum de toilette (the pale yellow coloured one):

Top notes: aldehydes, basil, bergamot, fruits, green notes, mandarin
Heart notes: orris root, jasmine, lily, lily-of-the-valley, orange blossom, rose, tuberose
Base notes: amber, benzoin, musk, myrrh, sandalwood, vanilla, cedar

You can readily tell from those notes how retro and big production the two perfumes smell - definitely of their time. But remarkably well preserved. If I am feeling bold one day - and let's face it, lockdown is the ideal occasion - I might give them an outing. Or the indoor equivalent, obviously. ;)

And I am getting through a lot of soap at the moment, however, I reckon that with it being so distinctive I'd have to be on my very last sliver before I broached the cute little lips bar...

The hermit and her hand cream: Lockdown life Part 2

So here we are...three weeks in, three weeks to go. Or an indefinite number of weeks, for the Government is keeping its cards close to its chest, and is terrified of breathing a word to the nation about the possibility of unlocking us for fear of people rushing out of their houses prematurely, lying on park benches in droves, jogging six abreast (accompanied by lots of panting and spitting), and having barbecues for 15 behind (rather symbolically) a row of lock up garages. In short, it doesn't trust the majority of people who have so assiduously complied with social distancing all this while.

Be that as it may, two weeks on from my last post, things feel quite a lot different, mainly in terms of the degree of resigned acceptance I feel about the situation. I guess people in actual prison must go through a very similar thought process - or the bereaved, indeed. Whereas before, my main objection to the restrictions was the isolation from friends, I have since become something of a born again hermit, and the thought of a zoom party featuring headshots of a dozen people (or however many you can fit onto a screen) would feel like a surreal surfeit of stimulation. I am okay with phone calls, but I would find the sight of even someone's head and shoulders strangely overwhelming at this point, and that's not even because of the dire 'wild woman' state of my own hair, hehe. No, I sense I have shifted down several gears, such that occasionally bumping into people - or even more occasionally arranging to drop off food with someone I gaily construe as 'elderly' if they are more or less my age(!), and potentially also 'vulnerable' once they have eaten my cooking ;) - is proving a busy enough form of social life. I am frankly amazed I have got to this point, and perhaps the tide will turn, and I will crave tangible company again.

Police poster on the ground - now technically litter!

Now I don't know about you, but in the absence of face-to-face contact I have been receiving a disproportionate number of emails, messages and texts compared to normal times, many from more distant family and friends, whom the current crisis has galvanised into action. On any given day I owe about ten replies by various media, and this surge in communications is causing an unexpected feeling of pressure I didn't foresee, even though I know this 'reaching out'(!) is well-intentioned, and I am grateful for people's concern. Moreover, each person who writes to me is of course unaware that I am receiving a number of similar inquiries. The fact of the matter is that I only tend to call my elderly friend, which backs up my hunch that I may be getting used to the solitary life.

Coincidentally, there is a beautiful creeper-clad hermitage in Tollymore Forest, Co Down, where my brother and I spent many happy childhood holidays (our parents had a caravan just outside the park). Years ago I decided that I wanted my ashes to be scattered in the Shimna River right below the hermitage. My brother has opted for a spot upstream of me with an architecturally interesting bridge and the added benefit of being a more discreet location for this surreptitious act to be carried out - with it being a national park, I mean. So there's further oblique confirmation of my hermit credentials.

Source: geograph.ie

Yes, the social isolation is bothering me less than it was, but meanwhile I can't wait to see my dentist, osteopath and hairdresser again - about my holey molar, sprained foot and pelvis, and mad mane of hair respectively! I am also quietly hopeful that an enterprising tree surgeon will swing by tomorrow to empty my bin of green waste, so that I can get on with gardening.

Though the loneliness may have receded, I remain moderately worried about catching the virus, especially after seeing a programme on survivors. One familiar face featured was Linda Lusardi, who got the illness quite badly and ended up in hospital with complications. When she sought reassurance from a nurse that she would make it, he was rather equivocal and said: "Hmm..well, it's hard to say - you are 61 after all, and this thing is brand new." (I am paraphrasing.) Having seen recent photos of the former Page 3 model, I must say she is looking tremendous for her age, which may have helped her recovery. However, the fact that someone so vital and relatively young in my terms could fall so ill does give you pause.

Are you by any chance doing that thing where if you wake up in the morning and feel a bit hot you start asking yourself if the feeling of heat is the sun streaming through the window, that hot bath you had last night, too much bedding, overly cosy pyjamas, a physical manifestation of anxiety...or could it possibly be The Fever?!! If anyone out there has already had the virus and would like to share their experience, please do let us know, also any tips for managing the symptoms.

The other thing that I'd be interested to know about the lockdown is whether you have found yourself doing new things, sometimes without any conscious decision to do so. Here's a round up of the ones I have noticed recently:

- Drinking hot water and lemon first thing (I have it in my head that this is good for detoxing the liver from all those Cadbury's Mini-Eggs)

- Sleeping longer and deeper (this is completely abnormal!)

- A three hour bike ride, not by design. Good - and God - deed for the day was alerting the vicar of Sandon church to the fact that his security alarm was going off. "There probably isn't a burglar inside", I said to allay his fears of a break in. "My money's on a bat." Hmm, maybe that wasn't the best way to reassure him.

- Ongoing unprecedented levels of cooking. Ex-Mr Bonkers has just come to the door and collected a tupperware of vegetable curry I set aside for him on the step. He took one look at my hair - he hasn't seen me for a month or two - and said: "Just accept you are going grey!" Ha!

- Using the downstairs shower (to mix up my ablution routine - gotta get your kicks where you can!)

- Applying hand cream (a lifetime first, which is doubtless related to the copious amounts of hand washing we are all engaged in)

The hand cream in question was given to me ages ago by fellow blogger Sabine, which goes to show how long-kept items can suddenly come into their own. Its realistic mimosa scent - cheery and uplifting in that distinctive sherbety way - reminded me of my first misguided purchase of niche perfume over ten years ago in Paris...L'Ete en Douce from L'Artisan Parfumeur, which Luca Turin so aptly described as "laundry musk on steroids" (I'm paraphrasing here too). The sad fact is that I was hesitating on that occasion between L'Ete en Douce and Mimosa pour Moi, and bitterly regret not opting for the latter. I think I did eventually manage to swap the musky miscreant for something I only wanted marginally more(!), but the memory of Mimosa pour Moi still haunts me...And for now, this Swedish hand cream is a fair substitute.

Ah dear, it seems to be discontinued, judging by the company's website.

Source: perfumemaster.net

PS I have been wearing perfume every now and then when I am in the mood and remember: Serge Lutens Un Lys, Guerlain Lys Soleia, Kenzo Eau de Fleur de Magnolia, original Vera Wang (worn ironically, obvs) and something I fished out from my sample box which just says 'Guerlain' on the vial, but which may in fact be Encens Mythique.

Hand washing and hand wringing: a Lidl liquid soap lookalike, and getting in a lather over lockdown

It's only been a few weeks, but I feel like a veteran of this lockdown lark, having 'done time' in two countries already. And I can confirm that as a person on my own it doesn't suit me at all. I didn't think I would react like this, for I am someone who routinely used to go on solo business trips for two, three, or even four weeks at a time, and I have lived alone for nearly eight years in my present house, and also for long spells in the past. No, what makes the current situation so hard to bear is the fact that you can't see your friends, not even to go for a walk at the appropriate distance, because they are not members of your household. During my solo walks I have encountered large families out together, pushing past on narrow pavements with no regard for social distancing, and have frequently been driven into the road. Same thoughtless jostling story in supermarkets. I have also seen knots of young people milling around shops and standing on street corners, and couples out jogging, and I doubt very much that they are all related. Then I have singleton friends who have rejigged their households the better to cope with the isolation: adult children have come home, sometimes with partners in tow. I don't blame them one bit, and I think I may be suffering from a case of "multiple person household envy". The tennis player Annabel Croft was interviewed on the radio yesterday, and she explained that having so many family members at home at the moment was unusually convivial. It sounded like Christmas every day, though she didn't exactly say so.

What else? There has been much talk in the media of people turning more to drink, haha, which amused me. I have always been an 'in-home' rather than a social drinker, but so far this year have stuck to my New Year's resolution of having three days of the week drink-free, a doubling of the tally I managed last year. Then I spoke to a friend yesterday, who said she was drinking a bit more than usual, and was also starting the day by bingeing on Bakewell tart from the local post office. I can't tell you how much she went up in my estimation for admitting that! And I do reserve the right to play the 'unprecedented times' card and progressively slide off my part-time wagon as the lockdown continues...;)

I have also been dabbling a bit more in exercise - I shan't overstate it, as I am a reluctant exerciser at best. I have mauled my 'vintage' Total Gym out of long term storage - a work out in itself, let me tell you - and stockpiled some cardio and resistance training videos, the shorter the better. I even watched a 6 minute introductory video of Yoga with Adriene, inspired by Tara of A Bottled Rose. All you had to do in that video was breathe deeply three times, and listen to her talk about comfy clothing, but I note that the next episode is nearly 50 minutes long, so realistically I may not get past looking out my mat(!). We'll see...I actually completed a ten minute exercise video I found on an NHS website last night, and today my knee hurts like mad, and I appear to have aggravated the arthritis in my other hand I didn't even know I had. So I guess the moral of all that is moderation in all things, hehe.

I am cooking a lot more, which is a good thing, and am also guiding ex-Mr Bonkers in his own culinary endeavours. He has never done more than open a tin of soup in his 61 years, but the current situation is driving him to buy and 'interact with' a whole range of foodstuffs. His first triumph was baking a potato, swiftly followed by an 'assembly' coup, namely putting a cheese and onion pasty and crinkle cut chips in the oven - requiring different lengths of cooking time and different temperatures! - while heating up baked beans on the top of the cooker. I told him that that meal involved complex organisational skills, and that he had done very well to have pulled it off without recourse to critical path analysis and a wall chart.

Now I don't know if you have found this, but all my usual service providers - energy companies, phone providers etc - appear to be hunkering down behind a veil of non-availability, which has led to some comically spun announcements, the first from British Gas:

"So for now, we can only help with prepay meter issues or emergencies (e.g. no heating or hot water). Please don't contact us about anything else. If you do, we've asked our customer service advisers to politely explain that we can't help right now."

And yesterday I was trying to communicate via Live Chat with Virgin Media. The AI bot didn't understand me for several exchanges, and when it eventually grasped my inquiry, I got the message:

"Just to let you know that we won't get back to you immediately, so you can get on with your day."

Whoohoo, thanks...!

I am still receiving a lot of promotional spam, also from perfume companies, which irks me, as perfume generally - and certainly buying any more - is the last thing on my mind. Le Jardin Retrouve and Diptyque are the worst offenders currently. Diptyque has been annoying me for years, as some readers may recall, and shows no sign of letting up. Oddly for me, all I have bought since the lockdown began is light bulbs, latex gloves, a couple of masks in case the Government guidance changes, and more probiotics, as in a pandemic like this the gut needs to keep up its game!

I say, have you seen any posters in windows asking questions of the neighbours opposite? A friend put one up wishing our mutual friend Kate a happy birthday, which was a nice touch. There's also the poster doing the rounds on Facebook where someone asks the name of a black and white cat in their neighbour's window (Answer: Walter), and I have just heard of another corker:

"What is the name of that pale Edwardian child in your loft window?"

Moving on, I cut my fringe the other day - with qualified success, it must be said. It is out of my eyes, but looks a bit wonky, and is still quite thick - my hairdressing skills are not up to 'wispifying' aka rendering my fringe 'choppy'. (Picture not available on request. ;) )

Hmm...I am also finding the lack of physical touch particularly hard...it's been four weeks nearly since I touched another person, and it is sad not to be able to put my arm round my elderly friend, which I am sure she appreciated. I can't even cross her threshold.

Oh, there was another happy consequence of the current situation: the gentleman with a keen interest in genealogy who kindly spent several years researching our family tree, decided to cast his net one more time and scooped up a bunch of Very Old Mussons from Freeby in Leicestershire, a village not previously on his radar. We are now back four more generations to c1550 and I have a new great great (etc!) grandfather called Valentine. A family tree 'freebie' indeed. He went on to recount his elaborate quest to find yeast, bemoaned the complete lack of eggs and sketchy supply of blueberries, and gave me a tip about 'ply splitting' paper proucts, assuming they are thick enough to start with. (FYI, I still haven't seen loo roll in the shops, though I believe there have been further supplies delivered - and possibly gone straight out again. Hand sanitiser is also something of a retail unicorn.)

Which leads me finally to the aforementioned Lidl Citrus & Herb liquid soap, a cunning fusion dupe of The White Company's bottle and the classic Jo Malone 'Lime, Basil & Mandarin' fragrance. It doesn't smell of much - which may be less an indictment of the product and more to do with my having symptoms of the coronavirus, though I hope not! - but it is incredible value for the not very much money it cost, whatever that was.

I would be most interested to hear your own lockdown stories, whether you are coupled up or on your own and not doing very well either! How you are passing the time, whether you are washing your shopping, leaving post for three days before opening it, and implementing other strange but strongly recommended Coronavirus measures.

COVID-19 in Corrèze (19): the cowslip trip, and my flight out of lockdown on 19.03

I have just been to France. I got home again a week later, but I very nearly didn't. This is the story of that ill-fated trip.

NB I have other more fragrant topics in mind to write about, but nothing is as top of head to me as the Coronavirus pandemic, having experienced it in a country - and in an area with a postcode beginning with 19, no less - that is much further down the road in terms of numbers of cases, and where government containment measures ratcheted up at a dizzying speed in the short time I was there.

Yes, I see now that it was madness to go...Ex-Mr Bonkers rang me every day for four or five days before I went, begging me not to, telling me it was all going to go to hell in a handcart very fast all over Europe, and that I would be stuck in France with no means of getting back. As a concession to him, on the morning of my departure I rang my travel insurer (who were still contactable back then...!), and asked if I could invoke my insurance policy if I cancelled my trip voluntarily, because I was worried about what might develop while I was over in France. They said unfortunately not; the policy only applies when things start to go wrong. So rather than lose my sunk costs on flight / hire car / airport parking, I set off on Thursday 12th for East Midlands Airport.

Then before handing over my hold luggage at the check in desk, I quizzed the Ryanair ground staff about the likelihood of my return flight still sticking to the wall by the time I was due to come home in ten days. They said nothing was set in stone, but that they as a company wanted to continue to fly for as long as possible, unless government intervention on either the French or British side stopped them - or their crew got sick. Commercial reasons were less likely to apply to them ie too few passengers showing up for flights to make them viable, as they had already taken people's money whether they travelled or not (Ryanair not being an airline to issue refunds on unused tickets).

So I sensed a will to fly back on the part of Ryanair, and that was as much as I could glean without committing to the air...which I duly did.

It was similar weather to Britain when I arrived - lashing rain and cold - and I spent a good forty minutes trying to open my front door, which had swollen in the long winter months, the wettest on record. Having finally wrenched it open, I then had problems shutting it(!), and ended up barricading the door with furniture as a temporary measure to deter burglars, not that they are thick on the ground in the village. I also messaged my go-to handyman, asking him if he could take a look at it at some point during my stay: star that he is, he arrived in 20 minutes(!), at 10pm, and promptly hammered it shut with his (very strong) fist, before promising to return on Saturday and do a proper repair. (We didn't shake hands.) Meanwhile, I could still come and go via the very old stable door to the side, which was also tricky to use as the key wouldn't come out of the lock, but I finally mastered the knack.

Friday and Saturday were almost normal, dare I say it? The library in the village was shut until further notice, along with my favourite charity shop, but I was able to pop into the local brocante, and the Post Office and boulanger were also open. In the nearby town, everything seemed pretty busy, so I got some more keys cut, bought a walking map, did a big supermarket shop, stocked up on logs and a vac-u-vin. Bars and restaurants were doing a lively trade, but I noticed that people there were doing the social distancing thing with varying degrees of compliance, unlike in the village. I saw two men and a woman greet each other with the traditional French hand shaking and kissing on the cheeks, and overheard one of them say: "I don't give a f***", as he did so. This kind of defiant behaviour turned out to be the death knell of life in France as they knew it just a couple of days later...

By now the weather was absolutely beautiful, with temperatures ranging from 16 - 22C, in strange contrast to the air of cosmic bleakness that hung heavy over the village and France more widely. The cases were creeping up in certain hotspots, and the health services struggling. On Sunday I weeded the perimeter of my house and went for a long walk using my new map.

At some point over the weekend - I can't quite recall when! - ALL shops and hotels, restaurants and bars were closed, leaving only supermarkets, pharmacies, petrol stations and banks operating as normal. Small independent food shops, like the boulanger, were initially shut down, but later allowed to open again, meaning I was allowed to sample their apple doughnut during my stay after all - a small win.

On Monday in the day I went in search of kindling, as an open fire was the best way to stay warm in the chilly evenings. I had to visit three big supermarkets quite some way away before I struck lucky, and was shocked at how close people were to one another in the checkout queues, though I tried to step out of line and back in again when it was my turn. There was a lot of panic buying and the "Less than 10 items" till at which I was queuing had been hijacked by those with trolleys piled high.

Then on Monday night, President Macron addressed the nation for the second time that week and expressed his annoyance at his fellow citizens' flagrant disregard of social distancing. From noon on Tuesday, everyone was grounded or "confined" for the next two weeks, and could only leave their homes for one of a handful of reasons, and then only with a self-completed form stating the reason in question, called an "attestation de déplacement dérogatoire".

On Tuesday, half an hour after the new law came into force, I sallied forth to the newly reopened boulanger on a mission to score my much anticipated doughnut. It was a very short distance from my house, and I didn't bother filling in an attestation for a round trip of five minutes. (But I did take care to do so for every foray from that point on.) In the baker's there was a big sign saying "Card payments only". Imagine, paying by card for a bun...I offered to pop back to my house to retrieve my bank card, but they said if I could pay that way next time that would be fine. So I lobbed a two euro coin from a safe distance onto the counter and we chatted for a while about where on earth this was all going to end up.

On Tuesday afternoon, I went for another long walk, but this time I took an attestation with me, though forgot any ID, which you are meant to have on you as well. Going for a walk was a legitimate reason to leave the house, but I may have pushed the km envelope - now set at 1-2km I believe, though previously a bit fluid, depending on how good a walker you are(!). I didn't meet a policeman, though an extra 100,000 had been deployed for the specific purpose of checking up on people's movements.

On the walk I picked some cowslips and put them in a jug when I got back.

On Wednesday I went for another walk, and picked some more cowslips, which I added to the jug. I did the additional flower picking on autopilot though, for while I was out in the countryside I received a message from a neighbour who is on the local council, reminding me that I was also grounded, that the borders were closed, and that I had to stay in the village for the full 15 days, or however long a period of confinement it turned out to be.

This news sent me into a complete tailspin, for I was not at all geared for a long stay in my house, and I sensed that the confinement period would turn out to be a lot longer than 15 days in the end. My shower had just broken, I had developed a large hole in my tooth (crusty bread being the likely culprit), and had a cat back home whom I could not expect friends to indefinitely feed. Plus, at 85, my Elderly Friend (as she is known on Facebook) is in the vulnerable category, and I needed to get back to do my bit to support her. At a time of national crisis like this, the only place you want to be is home. Your main home, in your own country. This is no time to be 'on holiday'.

So I spent several hours that night researching the rights of British citizens to jump 'confinement' and go home. I messaged a dear perfume friend, whose French husband rang me up late at night to assure me that "going back home" was a valid reason for travel, as long as I wrote it on the attestation form, as I had been doing for my walks.

Then very early the following morning I received a travel advisory email from the FCO, telling me to leg it basically, if I wanted to get back to the UK - for while the borders were still open, the transport options were closing down fast. I needed no telling, believe me, notwithstanding the town hall's wish to keep me there. Ryanair had already indicated that they were suspending flights from the following week, so if I didn't make a break for freedom sharpish, I knew I might be trapped in France for weeks or months to come. At 10am I discovered that the first of the three return flights to the UK I had bought! ;) (to cover all bases), had been miraculously reinstated, though it had been cancelled shortly after I booked it. So I promptly checked in online and set about packing up for an immediate departure.

Thus it was that at noon on Thursday 19th I did a 'daylight flit' to the airport. I also took along with me two kinds of rubbish. Ordinarily I would give these to my neighbours, but no one wants things you have touched anymore, so I took the bags with me. The household waste I put into the large dumper bin of a closed restaurant, while I tipped my green waste (the weeds from round my house, plus the cowslips ;( ) into a thicket in a forest, where I figured they would compost down nicely.

Departure lounge as I have never seen it before!

I drove on to the airport...the roads were eerily empty - quieter than Christmas Day - and in the large town of Limoges all but one of a dozen traffic lights turned green as soon as they saw me approach, which was also spooky. "Oooh look, a car, let's turn colour!" I made it to the airport with four hours to spare before take off, but I was just so glad to be there. In the concourse there were two roving (and masked) reporters from national TV channel France 3, who, having overheard me speak French to the check in staff, asked if they could film and ask me a few questions. They basically wanted to know why I was going back to Britain: was it because I was afraid of staying on in France? I explained that I had caring responsibilities for an elderly relative and that I wasn't afraid of the virus in France as such. I just needed to be back home, surrounded by my network of friends so that we could provide mutual support to one another. I also mentioned my responsabilities to Truffle. I didn't mention the broken shower, but now that confinement was in force - also for my handyman - that was not going to get fixed any time soon...

On time, a few hours later, the flight took off. There was no problem doing social distancing on board, as there were only 15 of us on the plane! I could have hugged the Northern Irish captain and all the crew for getting us out in the nick of the time, but obviously hugging is not the done thing now. The plane landed just before 6pm, and I was home - and incredulous to be so - by 7pm.

A 60 hour throwing up migraine promptly ensued, from which I emerged this morning...

Now I am back, I am behaving like a French person and carrying on my confinement: I am only going out for essential reasons, wearing gloves, washing my hands all the time, and not letting anyone into my house. I am even wary of mail. This illness is truly horrific if you get it badly - which is happening to people of all ages for reasons no one can fathom - so the more we all knuckle down and self-isolate, the more the NHS will be able to cope with the many casualties yet to come.


PS In case anyone is wondering I did wear perfume most, but not all of the time, because when I am truly stressed, not even perfume has the capacity to calm. But I do recall Estee Lauder Bronze Goddess on the way out from the tester in the Duty Free, Chanel Bois des Iles, Aqua di Parma Magnolia Nobile, Flower by Kenzo Oriental, L'Erbolario Meharees, and Hermes Vanille Galante.

Right now, however, I would happily sell some of my collection in return for toilet paper, having missed the panic buying peak in the UK while I was away!

Hyacinth harbingers, and the final phase of the utility / shower room makeover

Well, I don't know about you, but I would say 2020 has been a bit of a rum year so far. The uncertainty about Brexit has been supplanted by uncertainty about the Coronavirus, and having sprained my pelvis over Christmas, I have now managed to sprain my foot as well, though luckily not to the point of non-functionality. And I swear I am not fishing for people's sympathy, for it seems almost laughable...like people who bag Munros or make it their mission to visit every castle in Wales, I appear to be systematically working my way through my anatomy, spraining one body part at a time...! My friend Jim (of perfume focus group down the pub fame) quipped on hearing the news: "A true enthusiast would be doing it in alphabetical order." Waggish Katie Puckrik also weighed in, inquiring whether I had sprained my "ironing wrist" yet. To which I replied:

"Hahaha, thankfully not yet, but if I follow Jim's recommended alphabetical spraining MO above, I shouldn't get to 'wrist' anytime soon. Unless qualified by 'ironing', which would bring the incident forward somewhat?"

And as with the virus, I shall be asking myself: "Is your journey really necessary?", and turning down offers to 'go for a walk' as opposed to walking from A to B for a particular purpose. A spot of self-isolation would not be too great a blow, given the tottering tsundokus on my coffee table, not to mention my current obsession with knitting dishcloths. As you can see, I have been stockpiling books, not toilet rolls or tins of chick peas. Though that has a lot more to do with my tendency towards bibliomania than any formal kind of disaster planning.

Now the start of the year is often rather a gloomy time anyway, with January 6th seeing a peak for divorcing couples, and 18th January being designated Blue Monday, the most depressing day of the year. This date was arrived at using supposedly scientific methods:

"The formula uses many factors, including: weather conditions, debt level (the difference between debt accumulated and our ability to pay), time since Christmas, time since failing our new year’s resolutions, low motivational levels and feeling of a need to take action."

It has, however, been discredited by a neuroscientist from Cardiff University, who dismissed the work as "farcical" with "nonsensical measurements". My sister-in-law also begs to differ, as she turned 70 on 18th January and remained perfectly chipper all day.

Against this background of dramatic world events and bodily gyp, I must say I have found solace in two things: the therapeutic effect of flowers in my own house (notably hyacinths, of which I have been buying serial pots from Lidl for the princely sum of £1.99), and also flowers in that of my friend M, with whom I have a reciprocal cat feeding arrangement.

The pink ones were followed by the blue ones at the top of the post! And here is a pretty display at M's house, made all the more fetching in my eyes by the adjacent bottle of wine:

It doesn't count as an uplifting floral, but I enjoyed getting a whiff of beeswax from this tall pillar candle as I went upstairs each day to sort the cat's litter tray.

Also offsetting the downbeat feel to the time of year, there has been the relief of finally completing the renovation of my utility-cum-shower room behind the kitchen. Some readers may recall the utter mayhem that prevailed last winter during attempts to level the floor and lay floor covering (in vain!) over the new substrate. I wrote anguished posts on the 'one step forwards, two steps back progress' of the works here, here and here.

In the last of these, I reveal the near completed bathroom side of the room, but the utility side was not tackled for another nine months, and it was only three months after that that the final bits of decorating and touching up were completed. Not by me, I might add, though I did run to B & Q a lot for materials, and was gainfully employed making tea much of the rest of the time.

Just to recap, here are some of the 'before' shots...

A very big Belfast sink indeed!

Bye-bye loo...

The shower tray leaked under the floor, so when this flaw was finally discovered after three months of daily use(!), the fixture was belatedly condemned and used for storing Hoovers and mops.

There was a cobwebby vent in the window, and a bizarre metal rod piercing the area immediately above it.

The electrics had to be rerouted from upstairs, as there were two few power points for the number of appliances, and visible plugs also had to be hidden to comply with bathroom regs.

And I was never a fan of the Stoke City livery, so the red had to go...

Then the too short worktop, which I had taken to calling 'Shorty' in a bid to reconcile myself to its 'near miss' nature, has been bulked out with a piece of wood and painted. (The plumber who assembled the unit didn't realise there was an end panel on the side of the cabinet before cutting the worktop to size.)

Shorty before...if you look carefully, you can see that the white worktop finishes a frustrating fraction before the end of the unit.

Shorty is now 'a bit Longery'...

And here is the end result, with shelves stained to match the floor, a mirror and pictures, and other bits and bobs.

I cut some japonica from the garden, adding a cheery spray of snowy blooms to the window sill. Those are Floris's jasmine-scented soaps, and if I need a bit of a lift, I lean in and sniff them instead, as japonica doesn't really smell of anything, though its blossom looks pretty(!).

And the utility side, with a new worktop and small freezer, replacing a tall freestanding one that was bigger than I needed and dominated the room almost as much as the condemned shower opposite.

A view of the cupboards on top, plus new boiler! The previous one was 18 years old and on borrowed time, which I didn't feel I dared risk with paying guests.

Here is the shower again to complete the virtual tour, though that was finished a year ago.

There is so much more to do in and on the house (cracks galore, window repairs, new kitchen one day as the current one is 25+ years old, as well as sorting out the jungle that is the garden - it has been allowed to run riot in recent years due to my woeful lack of knowledge of all things horticultural).

But for now, doing the laundry has become a pleasure - almost - ditto the ironing, until the day I do eventually sprain that wrist... ;) And Lidl still has stocks of hyacinths for when the blue ones completely keel over.

Are you finding comfort in spring flowers or completed home projects...?

And do you also find that hyacinths are constitutionally floppy?

Results of the Puredistance GOLD 'Paying it Forward' giveaway!

I see that the last draw I featured on Bonkers was for a dishcloth, lovingly handknitted by moi, with Annie A in Canada the lucky winner - or unlucky, depending on how you feel about doing the washing up. I do remember that across the pond generally, what we call 'washing up liquid' is known as 'dish soap', though that is not so far removed from 'doing the dishes', I suppose. And funnily enough I am busy knitting a whole stack of dishcloths in different colours and patterns at the moment...

But hold on, I hear you cry...can you please get to the point of who won the Puredistance GOLD draw?

Well, I excluded the DNEMs, who were several, and put everyone else's name into the virtual hat that is the online number generator, Random.org. Back in the day, as long term readers may remember, I used to get Mr Bonkers to call out a random number, and funnily enough he was here this afternoon, but I had already done the deed by that point, so didn't need to resort to my trusty human method.

It was noteworthy that of the eight participants who wished to be entered - I told you the odds were good on here! ;) - no fewer than three had Christian names beginning with 'H'. So I did think there was a fairly high chance that an 'H'-named person would win, and so it has proved.

Without further ado I can reveal that the winner of the Puredistance GOLD giveaway is:

HAYLEY

Congratulations!

Let me know your address on flittersniffer at gmail dot com, and I will post your sample off to you. 

Paying it Forward: (in) Puredistance Gold

"This post is a part of a joint mini project, a.k.a. giveaway, held by Undina (Undina’s Looking Glass), Vanessa (Bonkers about Perfume), Lucas (Chemist in the Bottle) and Portia (Australian Perfume Junkies) – see details at the bottom of the post."

Ooh, I haven't participated in a joint blogging project in forever. I do remember one in 2010 on The Scents of the Mediterranean, and there must have been an example or two since. However, with being a bit of a lone wolf that walks by itself I haven't tended to do much in the way of collaborations with other bloggers. To be fair, I haven't done much blogging lately, period, which has as much to do with the ongoing jip from my sprained pelvis (and inability to sit still for long periods) as it has with any dip in my fragrant mojo. Be that as it may, the rationale behind this particular joint exercise struck me as so worthwhile that I am delighted to have been asked to host the UK end of the giveaway.

Without further ado I should add that this initiative is the brainchild of Undina, who explains how she lit upon the idea on Undina's Looking Glass.

For the full background do hop over to her blog, but in brief, Puredistance is a fine example of 'slow perfumery' (to annexe a term perhaps best known in the context of cooking and travel). It has gradually increased both its stable of fragrances and its retail network, growing the company in a measured and organic way, also in terms of its marketing approach. Undina feels (and I wholeheartedly agree) that Puredistance has always been appreciative of the varied and highly individual ways in which bloggers have spread the word about its perfumes. The company even collated their reviews into a presentation book, which I have never seen done by a brand before. To this day, 11 years on from the launch of PD 1, Puredistance continues to be unstintingly generous to the blogging community in its provision of samples. This was never conditional on their part, and by the same token, we bloggers wrote from the heart and not as part of some tacit quid pro quo arrangement that 'free stuff' would automatically come our way. But because of Puredistance's respect for the blogging community and its voice, I'd say this naturally led to closer - while still independent - ties.

Conversely, owing to the limited distribution of the brand, the fact of the matter remains that most people reading reviews will probably not have the opportunity to try these perfumes in a store anywhere near them. Which is why Undina thought it would be a nice idea to hold parallel giveaways in the four regions of the participating bloggers, enabling one reader in each area to win a sample of Puredistance's latest release, GOLD.

Here's the technical detail, courtesy of Undina:

"Puredistance Gold Sample(s) Giveaway

One ~ 1.5ml handmade sample of Puredistance Gold is offered in a giveaway on each blog for a reader from the specific geographical region:

Bonkers about Perfume - the UK

Undina’s Looking Glass – the US and Canada

Chemist in the Bottle  – Europe (without the UK)**

Australian Perfume Junkies – Australia

While you’re invited and encouraged to comment on any/all of the participating blogs, to be entered into the draw you should leave a comment on 'your' region’s blog, following the instructions given there.

The draw will close on February 23. You know all the disclaimers etc."

Now I love GOLD myself and for anyone who hasn't tried the line, it is an ideal introduction to Puredistance's luxurious yet wearable style. Links to my review of it and those of five other scents are listed below, along with one to my post about visiting the offices of Puredistance in 2011 - I was apparently the first blogger to do so. I received a very warm welcome from Jan Ewoud Vos and his team, and at the end of our meeting was given a memorably packaged(!) ;) slice of apple cake for the road.

Visit to Puredistance HQ

Review of Puredistance 1

Review of Puredistance BLACK

Review of Puredistance WHITE

Review of Puredistance SHEIDUNA

Review of Puredistance WARSZAWA

Review of Puredistance GOLD

The travel escapades of a sample of Puredistance M

Editor's note: It occurred to me that as Bonkers receives few comments anymore - looking again at these reviews has rather reminded me of that - if you are in the UK the chances of scoring a sample here are extremely high!

**Europe (without the UK) Ah, how true...;(

WHITE and BLACK cosying up together