Scent

Hello all! I've been blown away these last few days by scent.. and I've been thinking about it a lot. You know, essential oils are great and everything, but its not the same. So what triggered all this? Well several things simultaneously: the boys came back from Nanny's house with a bunch of lily of the valley for me - what a treat! It has been scenting the bedroom, so that when you open the door you get a great waft of aroma .. and if you lie down and relax and breath it in can transport you to paradise.

Then, yesterday, at the end of a tired and rather fraught day with the little'un, when he'd finally been beaten by bedtime, and mummy still had the chore of heading back out into the garden and righting the havoc he'd been wreaking all afternoon, an amazing gift - opening the shed door and so creating a slight breeze, the wisteria sang to me. It just kind of rustled its leaves in the breeze and a shower of lilac petals spiralled down onto the grass around me and it enveloped me in perfume. I knew it smelt good, as you can smell it during the daytime, but I don't usually venture outside in the evening and was totally unprepared for its heady power. It just took every ounce of tension and stress right out of my body and blew it away on the breeze. Wow. Embraced by a plant!

And today, a moment of unalloyed bliss. My absolute top favourite all-time obsessive plant love is a rose which my mum-in-law (the same lovely lady who sends back bunches of lily of the valley, aren't I lucky?) grows. The perfume is exotic and heavy and druglike (ie. addictive!) She used to always send me back a bloom or two when we lived in Tottenham, and once we landed in Essex she gave me the gift of a cutting for my new herb garden. It thrives there, and in its first year, last year, it had two phenomenal blooms. It has grown massively in the year since and is all set to do its thing now .. today the first of 7 or 8 burgeoning buds burst into full bloom. I knew it was there, I watched it start to unfurl yesterday evening and open up gradually all morning out the window, and when I got back from dropping little'un at nursery for the afternoon the first thing I did was to head over and i.n.h.a.l.e... exquisite, just a personal moment of bliss.

It will be gone tomorrow, as its so hot out there this afternoon that the show will be over and it will drop its petals (I will be standing by to catch them). But its moments like that which sustain you through all the ordinary, uncomfortable or just less-than-satisfactory parts of life, don't you think?

Now that's aromatherapy!