Scent of Life

Along with the music the other thing that people are mentioning are scents.Which of course took me off in a journey done memory lane!

There are the more functional but evocative smells, like freshly baked bread, just brewed coffee. No accident then that the coffee pot was on yesterday when my first viewers for months came by to look at the house! Shoe polish is one I love, takes me back to being given sixpence by my Daddy for cleaning his shoes ready for work. And him spending hours polishing his army boots and his Sam Brown (leather army belt)ready for him to do his TA duties.

The smell of loose face powder, my mother wasn't very tidy, and her make up drawer in her dressing table when open always billowed out clouds of the stuff. She wasn't a great one for perfume, but she had a signature scent, Joy by Jean Patou, which today remains one of my favourites.

I had a very glamorous Aunty Cynthia who adored perfume, when she died I got all of her collection. She introduced me to Guerlain, a company that specialises in heady and opulent smells,Shalimar is my all time fav from this company.

Then there are the sleeping baby smells that every mother knows. That freshly talced clean sleepy smell. The one where however bad the day has been with a crying baby the mother just lets it all go, as she wants to keep her sleeping baby safe for ever,even if she has wanted to strangle her darling the rest of the day.

What about the smells of love, Eau Savage by Dior worn by my first love. I even bought my own bottle after we broke up! When I was a teenager all young men seemed to smell of Brut by Faberge. Such an evocative smell of those first cheek to cheek dances and tentative kisses.

Clinique's Elixir is the scent worn for ever by my best friend Eve in Philadelphia. It permeates her house. And it's a smell that I now love because of her, but outside of her don't like at all.

I personally adore perfume. I go through bottles of the stuff, nowadays they tend to be from companies that work with more natural ingredients. I do not like a lot of the synthetic (nasty smelling to me ) scents around. I don't particularly have a signature scent,except I'm now into my fifth bottle of Honeysuckle and Jasmine by Jo Malone. It smells of warm sunny days with just a hint of suntan lotion on a hot body to me. Otherwise the smells I buy will be on my way somewhere. As many trips as possible have to include enough time to spend an hour in duty free finding that holidays smell.

And of course now in the Northern hemisphere the smells are increasing by the day, as the flowers start to bloom, and when the blossom comes out the world will be heady with divine perfume. Then the grass will be long enough to mow and I will just breath and breath in that smell, that goes all the way back to my childhood and will never stop being one of my and most other peoples favourite smells.