I am trying the writing little sections method. The fog has cleared away and, (as in bizzarro world), not only has the snow melted and totally disappeared within a few hours but it is now raining and quite warm.

I was very struck by an article about French women who, apparently, make themselves happy at a shallow level by having all the tiny things in their daily lives as perfect as they can be. Like always having an immaculate pedicure; drinking minute cups of rare and expensive coffee; using an antique fountain pen; filling the house with fresh flowers and ...... always wearing a haunting and delicious perfume. Unfortunately, when I have tried living like this I have found that it is true. The down side is that I am too lazy to keep it up, even, incredibly, not 'getting round' to spraying on some scent in the mornings. How could I be so pathetic? I ask myself. One reason might be that I have never found a 'daytime' scent that I really like. I am drawn to exotic, musky perfumes which one would wear at night in the harem and find most light 'fresh' scents remind me more of something that you might use to air the lavatory.

I thought that maybe pure flower essences would be good and spent ages sampling the whole nogilahneP range one morning in sdorraH. Although very expensive they still had that peculiar 'cleans where other bleaches cannot reach' under current. I could have been distracted by the fact that their counter is oddly sited near the bottom of the famous naitpygE escalator with its shrine to Princess D.... and D.... F.... The other place for this is 'oJ enolaM' whose shop happens to be very near my doctor, so I forced myself to brave hundreds of intrusive assistants (mostly male, weirdly), and also go through their stock, sniffing from countless tiny spills of paper. It was all vaguely 'wrong'. But I was too wet to leave with nothing (there is a scary person on the door) so I bought 'Gardenia', really too heavy for daytime and with a touch of 'the under current' and 'Red Roses', pleasant but reminiscent of your granny. I almost bought a 'Red Roses' room candle to mask the smell of cat food in my bedroom but luckily checked the price first which was FIFTY POUNDS for a 6" by 4" lump of wax. Who buys this stuff?


Perhaps the only answer is to have a perfume specially mixed just for me. I know that you can and that it is really, really expensive. But if I add up all the different scents that I buy over the years and then leave to rot maybe it would work out cheaper in the end. The one that I wear at night now is 'ocoC' and I have liked it for years. Before that it was a scent called 'tidnaB' by Robert teugiP which was suddenly withdrawn from Europe and then only sold in Russia, inexplicably. My older daughter stomped downstairs rattily one day and thrust a bottle of Chanel 19 at me. 'You'd better have this as I can't wear it apparently'. 'What do you mean?' 'The others say it makes them go all squiggly as it makes them think I'm you'. I had completely forgotten that I used to wear that perfume all the time when they were little but had not used it for more than ten years. Also my middle daughter found that she was feeling odd and uncomfortable with her boyfriend one evening and suddenly realised that he was wearing a new aftershave which was the one that her brother always used. He had to go and wash it off before she could bring herself to touch him.

I am not very concious of scents and can put up with unemptied rubbish bins etc. better than most but perhaps I would be happier without the lingering cat pee and burnt toast hovering at the back of my brain. I am using the 'Red Roses' as a bedroom spray plus primulas in pots and keeping a subtle hint of 'Gardenia' for de-stressing on the train. (By the way - a good 'natural' antidote to cat smells is to lightly scorch a twig of rosemary; it is a bit medicinal but overpowers other scents easily. I discovered this by dropping one on the hot plate accidentally).

- posted by Iris @ 3/12/2004 05:23:00 PM comment