A Little Color to Share

 A small vase to hold a collection of colors, textures, perfumes and corresponding memories.

Rosemary, spiky, aromatic, dressed in Provencale colors.

Velvet wallflowers in burnished orange, wafting scents that take me back to the garden of my Mother's Great Aunt Flossie.

 Brash petunias and perfumed stock, encroached upon by a bustle of sweet-pea starters and the evergreen leaves of jasmine. The stakes are there to support the Dahlias that are hidden to all but my inner eye, for now.

 Forget-me-nots blueing up in my overcrowded pots.

 Wall flower habitat. Unstructured, willful, messy. 

 Birds-eye view of sweet-pea plants that have reached a foot tall already, and had to be tied up to the trellis today. There is a seating area just the other side of this low wall, and a crab-apple tree behind, that flowers in an abundance of rich cotton candy pinks.

 The small green leaves down in front are Columbines. I see the flowers that are not there yet.

Orchids in a pot, by my front door. They come back every year, from this plant that I bought at the flea-market, on a jaunt with faraway friends. This year's abundance has let me use orchids as a cutting flower.

Taking time to smell the Hawaiian Ginger

No time to write much, or think much, or even breathe much. A rare moment  of peace and joy was found when we took the extra trouble to lunch outside and found that my Hawaiian Ginger is in flower. Between five and six feet tall with one flower-head per stem, this is the most heavenly perfume that you can imagine. I don't have the energy to wax lyrical and think up descriptions to marvel, but I hope you all get to experience this one day. 
I wanted to add that followers and comments make me happy too. Thanks to the newcomers and the faithfully supportive amongst you.

Havoc, Manifesto, Wet Gun-Dog....?

I like perfume for it's own sake but also for the time-travel memories it can evoke.

In my Disco years when days were spent wearing muddy boots and playing with horses and the nights were a constant search for something else to ride, my perfume of choice was Havoc by Mary Quant, (makeup by Biba, of course).

Havoc was my signature smell, recognised and remembered amongst the sweaty dark and strobe lights. The Brut-splashed boys I dated all told me they loved it and it pleased me to say the name. Havoc!

After moving to France, (and growing up a little), the Man who was to be my one and only, said that my perfume reminded him of a diesel truck, in need of an engine tune-up, starting on a cold morning. Apparently he could get beyond that thought and liked me for other reasons. I moved on to lighter, more organic scents of mimosa, orange flower and Lilly-of-the-Valley.

A leap forward a few years and we are living in California. Mr. "Don't Spare My Feelings" has to travel to France a few times a year and each time he returns he brings perfume. I'm not complaining, but I understand how this goes. Mr. DSMF either arrives at his airport with time to shop (unusual) or reaches for the duty free catalog to shop on the plane. He has no clue what to choose; it's an excuse to engage in conversation with a charming flight attendant, or store assistant. "Which perfume should I buy for my wife, Mademoiselle?" "This is my favorite, Monsieur. Your wife will love it. It's all the rage!" Duty-Free is a good description for it. Duty-Dispensed-With would also be apt.

And so I found myself discovering new perfumes: For a while it was "Anais Anais" by Cacharel; Not too young, not too old and in fashion with many of the other women dropping kids off at the French-American school every day.

"Manifesto" by Isabella Rossellini was, and still is, a favorite. I like the slightly anarchistic implications of the name, as well as both the perfume and the squared-off shape of the bottle. The fact that "Manifesto" often draws compliments from the guys I work with in construction, who want to know the name so they can get some for their wives, has me suspicious that maybe it's another truck-related perfume.

I have one bottle that is designed to look as though it is falling over. The packaging designers of "Eau des Merveilles" by Hermes did not impress me with this gimmick, although I suspect that this is the reason Mr. DSMF chose it. However, I do like the perfume and it is currently first choice for the daily squirt.

Mr. DSMF was always an advocate of the "natural" aroma of human beings. Little by little he began using scented after-shave. Passing through the inevitable "Old Spice" phase, I know he was disappointed in his quest to find "Parsley and Garlic", although that might be available at the Gilroy Garlic Festival, a place we are never going.

When I visit England I find myself in the gift stores run by The National Trust and have successfully found natural honey-based products that smell great. "Parchment" was also well received, and it did have that Historic paper aura.

My best find of all time was a cologne for men called "Wet Gun Dog". Now I am no longer torn by the choice of who to hug first.

Mr. DSMF arrived home from this most recent trip smelling very attractively indeed. It is still very unusual for him to get involved in such things for himself. After a couple of days of surprisingly increased enjoyment of being in his proximity I wanted to know what he was using.
As soon as I saw the container of "1 Million" by Paco Rabanne I knew why he had bought it. Mr. DSMF likes his bling. This looks like a gold ingot. How could he resist? It is purely the luck of the draw that it smells appealing.

Flower Power!

Sunday was Hot as Hell! I like my share of sunshine, but waking up at 6:30 am to ingest an Alka Seltzer (we overdid the din-dins and drinky-poos Saturday night), it was already 75 degrees Fahrenheit. Discretion being surely the better part of valor in this case, I gave up on my 9am riding lesson and went back to bed for an hour. We subsequently spent a lazy day, mostly indoors, as it was too hot to even enjoy the pool.

The result of all that added calorific sunshine to the neighborhood's already well fed and watered plants has been a "bloom-boom" and waves of aggressive perfumery that would make a Triffid feel embarrassed at it's own paltry attempt at post-apocalyptic World domination, in comparison.

Yesterday, although ten degrees cooler than the triple digits of the day before, it was still nice and toasty as I set out in the morning with my old furry dog to complete our morning rounds of the 'Hood.

First off, my next-door neighbor has jasmine as ground cover. Wham! Into a solid wall of fragrance. Surviving that caramel-sweet encounter we moved slowly on, passing nuclear powered English Roses and almost succumbing to the nauseating droning fragrance of Mexican Orange; the "B" list of citrus smells. We hadn't yet made it to the end of the block and it was obvious that there was some kind of teeth-baring face-off going on, to decide who would be Alpha Aroma plant for the day.

Continuing bravely into the olfactory essences; unmitigated by the slightest wisp of air movement; we rounded the bend into a staccato hail of Gardenia gunshots, the source recognizable by the telltale creamy-white muzzle flashes in the dark green foliage. Ducking for cover we made it into a place of temporary respite; a garden planted with drought tolerant native plants on one side and, on the other, the fried-to-a-crisp remains of what just yesterday was a spectacular display of bearded iris.

Into the home stretch now, although mauled by undiluted honeysuckle and pursued by Peonies; which I usually liken to the magic drops placed on the eyelids to enhance the experience of a Midsummer Night's Dream; but on this day was so strong as to be a shockingly noisome Bitch-slap of scent. One last effort to get past the high-pitched exhuberance of Sweet-Peas and thankfully back into the house, whence to recover from the woozy and pscychadelic effects brought on without ever having smoked a thing. Whew!