Why pot pourri makes me sniffy
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YOU MAY be interested to hear that pot pourri, that sticky mixture of petals, pine cones and twigs stinking of cinnamon and air freshener, is back in fashion. It could be you’re casting around for Christmas ideas and a sachet of pot pourri could be a gift for someone you don’t like much. There’s that joke about how easy it is to mistake pot pourri for posh crisps. This really happened when my dear old dad mistook it for a bowl of nibbles and gamely crunched on a handful, washed down with a G&T.
Pot pourri seems to belong to a bygone age of Laura Ashley party frocks and rag-rolled walls. Since then in my housewifey quest for a fragrant home, I’ve moved on to diffusers (those bottles of pungent oil with a handful of sticks) which smell nice for a week, then sit collecting dust for six months, smelling of nothing.
I’ve had enough of them, and I’m so over scented candles. I look and screech “How much?!” I’ve never mastered the lifestyle that goes with them. You need cashmere socks and nobody gives me cashmere socks. Meanies. And who has time to lounge on a sofa, sweater pulled over your knuckles, hands cupped round a mug of hot chocolate, scented candle on the go. It’s that “hygge” thing from a couple of years ago, the Scandi art of being cosy.
And some scented candles can be a health hazard, experts say, due to the cancer-causing paraffin wax. You think it’s a divine aroma but you might as well be sucking on the exhaust of a 25-year-old diesel estate.
My cupboards are full of those homemade lavender bags which people gave me if they didn’t give me homemade chutney (a scrap of gingham tied round the lid and a handwritten label describing the slurry therein). None of the bags, tucked away for years, smells of anything either. But it seems unkind to throw them out when such effort went into making them.
The sad truth is that horrible smells linger horribly while lovely ones evaporate like morning mist. But while I’ll do almost anything to prevent my home from smelling of socks and boiled cabbage, those spray-on “odour eliminators” and sheet fresheners are cheating. And unhygienic. There’s one brand which (so says the advert) you can spray on your clothes to give them an extra day’s wear. I mean... eughhh.
Compared with such slovenliness a little bowl of pot pourri seems suddenly appealing.
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I KNEW I was going to like BBC One’s new drama Gold Digger when Julia (played by Julia Ormond) regretfully fingered her senior railcard as she sat on a train speeding to London to celebrate her 60th birthday. Nice to see the female star of a sizzling drama who will never see 59 again. It makes a change.
In the British Museum she met Benjamin (Ben Barnes), prime toy boy material and extremely creepy but he floated her boat, much to the disgust of her tiresome trio of grown-up children. They were in no doubt that Benjamin was after her fortune.
The other star of the series is Julia’s beautiful house in Devon. I’d marry her myself to get my hands on that.