Sunday 22 March 2020
Eau de Toilette
Today in town is exactly like Sundays used to be, with the exception that the flower shop on the bridge is open, with buckets of bloom and blossom taking up most of the pavement outside.
I hardly ever go into florists these days, but I used to visit them just to breath in the wonderful mixture of scents. It isn't just the blooms - the wet greenery contributes generously to the heady blend.
Have you ever been into the massive heated palm house at Kew on a Winter day? That is an exotic experience never to be forgotten.
The house that I was brought up in had a large glazed conservatory on one part of the South wall. I don't think it was ever used other than by my mother for the occasional potting of seedlings destined to be replanted in the garden outside. It had a huge system of hot water pipes and radiators which were never switched on by my frugal father, but even on a cold Winter day it was warm enough for shirt sleeves if the sun was shining.
Of the several bathrooms in the house, I preferred the cramped little one near the kitchen which was built for the original owner's servants. You could - and I often did - stand up in the bath and open the leaded window which was contained within the glass walls of the conservatory. I would lean out (or in) with my arms resting on the cill, breathing in the warm, musty, bone-dry scent of a long-dead fern which carpeted the beds with its tiny, pale brown needles. All I have to do is close my eyes and remember to bring this 60 year old experience back to life.
There are many aromas which bring that house back to me. Cigars (a rare scent these days) and spirit alcohol is Christmas. Mitsouko perfume is my mother preparing for the annual Ball at the Grand Lodge in Great Queen Street. Lily of the Valley soap is the dark green bathroom which was attached - for some reason - to the entrance hall and never, ever used, apart from when my aunt would arrive by car from Brighton, unable to make it to another W.C. deeper in the house without wetting herself.
Next to the bottles of perfume on her dressing table was a small, dried gourd. It had been emptied of seeds and pulp, the the top stalk with attached cap had been replaced to make a container for small items, but it was always empty of trinkets. About once a week I would sneak into my parent's bedroom and stick my nose into that gourd, just to experience the sweet, uncorrupted miasma it contained.
Azaleas, beech nuts, leaf mould, lavender, quince, yew... I could go on, but so could you.
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Lovely post Tom. You don't say whether you went into the Florist this morning and bought Spring Flowers - hope you did.
ReplyDeleteNo, I don't like cut flowers Weave.
DeleteLovely memories Tom ...... the perfume that I wear is called Flower Market and the blurb on the back of the bottle says it smells like the back of a florists shop and it does. Our sense of smell brings back so many memories .XXXX
ReplyDeleteMy perfume is called 'Tart's Boudoir'.
DeleteAbsolutely love the smell of a florist shop. It is quite amazing what memories are triggered by a fragrance. Wonderful post Tom.
ReplyDeleteThey say that hearing is the last sense to go, but it could be smell.
DeleteMy 'smell' is that of geraniums, grown on an old dairy slab just inside the back door of the farmhouse, by my grandmother's younger sister, who lived with her. Great-aunt always put piles of damp tea leaves onto the pots, so they always had that damp earth smell. My brother caught me tidying up the plants in my sunroom last year and smiled. Same smell.
ReplyDeleteI always hated the smell of geraniums, but yes - that's another one.
DeleteSticking your nose into the gourd sounds like self-flagellation.
ReplyDeleteOnly if I was whipping myself at the same time, surely?
DeleteWalking home in the summer dusk and suddenly catching the smell of honeysuckle .
ReplyDeleteOh yes. Also the dreaded Himalayan Balsam is very evocative for me.
DeleteMy grandmother was a dentist, for years whenever I entered a dental clinic I was reminded of her. Then the materials the doctors used disappeared, and with them the smell disappeared.
ReplyDeleteI had a really bad experience with a hospital when I was a child, and it was not until years later when they changed the sanitisation that I could enter one.
DeleteHow evocative are smells and scents, to trigger memories.
ReplyDeleteSoap flakes on wool...my father's jumper made into a hot water bottle cover for me...because he worked away sometimes when I was a Four year old....
I never had a security blanket, but I understand the need to keep them unwashed.
DeleteMy grandfather was a tailor and I can smell his studio - a sort of musty mix of bolts of fabric, decades of accumulated lint, tailors chalk, machine oil, old tobacco and condensed milk for the cups of tea.
ReplyDeleteOh yes. You have reminded me of gun oil. Very distinctive.
DeleteMy smell is my grandfather's pipe. When I started reading the comments, I remembered the tobacco, but now I've forgot. Cherry something...
ReplyDeleteI miss cigar and pipe smoke.
DeleteI agree about smells and memory, Tom. I can be doing something, a scent will come and I am back into a situation long forgotten. I have my fathers old work box (he was a master carpenter) and opening that with its combined smells of oil (for metal preservation) and wood (he kept a block of rosewood in there, purely for its frangrance) take me back into his workshop, as a small boy.
ReplyDeleteMy sister had an Indian box made of sandalwood. I loved opening it.
DeleteSun on dark-smelling box, me on a little footstool covered with red velvet, a huge pale pink hat from my grandmother on my head to protect me from the sun - and the honey-vanilla-smelling tobacco from my grandfathers pipe. Bliss.
ReplyDeleteSounds good.
DeleteTom thanks for the advice about blocking comments - my computer skills are limited and I can no longer find 'dashboard' - can you help please?
ReplyDeleteYou should be able to find the comment moderation thing with the 'design' bit and the dashboard should be where your reading list is. I'll look when I get home. I'm on a phone right now!
DeleteRight Weave, first you have to find your dashboard - can't help you with that.
DeleteOnce you have found it, go to SETTINGS.
Then to POSTS COMMENTS AND SHARING.
From there you will see WHO CAN COMMENT.
Click the box named USER WITH GOOGLE ACCOUNT etc.
You have probably set it to ANYONE INCLUDING ANONYMOUS - Get rid of that!
Tom, enjoyed today's offering. How fortunate you were to have had a conservatory! Each late winter, when we were in need of an outdoor "fix," we would go to a local University's greenhouse. Walking through it and picking up the delicious aroma of greenery and blossoms was wonderful. My grandmother's favorite cologne and soap was Lily of The Valley. Stay well.
ReplyDeleteYou too.
DeleteI bet you can't smell any bloody thing these days.
ReplyDeleteI can smell hypocrisy from a great distance.
DeleteDepends which way the wind's blowing
DeleteFantastic trip down scented memory lane, Tom. The smell of wet eucalyptus reminds me of walking to school as a child.
ReplyDeleteWet eucalyptus. I'm thinking of Australia rather than California, but we have a few here too. Their limbs tend to drop off and land on houses.
DeleteTrump tells me that the economy will be back on track in time for the election, virus or no virus. Lovely man.
Glasgow's Kibble Palace in the Botanic Gardens was the perfect place to play in as a child … but they wouldn't let you take your scooter in so you'd have to keep jinking out to check it hadn't been pinched.
ReplyDeleteKibble Palace? Isn't kibble some sort of dog treat?
Delete