Heaven Scent

Walking along the road last evening even though it had been tipping it down, a smell stopped me in my tracks ! It was delicious. Soft and sweet and I knew it ! I just had to find it in my memories!

There it was. I smiled actually as it’s the most insignificant flower that goes unnoticed unless you know about it. It’s smaller than a ha’penny and the colour as black as coal though it looks rather pink in the image I took , but its scent is mighty.

As I said, so mighty but gentle, it literally stopped me in my thoughts.

The lady’s whose home it was was stood by the back door, very frail but very jolly ! I waved but she came out as she had seen me smell this plant. I actually thanked her for the scent and she was extremely grateful, possibly she thought I was mad !!!

It got me thinking, about the blog and about scent memory. How many times do you smell something and literally fall back to the moment you last smelt it, held it or wept with it. Isn’t scent powerful. It is very different to seeing something, it’s much more evocative. A little like sound or a melody. It truly takes your breathe away at times.

Summer flowers remind me of my training days as a teenager when all the flowers were seasonal. Possibly why I’m looking to return to the seasonal flower calendar. When the Lily of the Valley ( Convallaria majalis ) man came in may time with his first pot of white gold, I remember feeling actually moved by the scent. I was only a young girl but I was smell struck !!!

Then came the stocks ( Matthiola spicata) and the pinks and sweet Williams (Dianthus) and later on the Peony and Dahlia ‘s . I loved this time. I loved the heady experience of scents and learning.

We also would have very scented roses at this time , one of my all time favourites was a Jacaranda rose. A beautiful deep cerise pink. Joyous ! For my level 3 portfolio when I was around 18, I wrote about my wedding bouquet with Lily of the Valley and Jacaranda roses. No, I didn’t have these….. it was a long way off from the day someone took me on honestly !!!

Alas now we have less seasons and less scent or if we do we pay a premium. Hence our promise to buy British when we can and get the scent back on the calendar !

Oh by the way, the plant I smelt last evening, the humble Pittosporum flower. Once smelt, never forgotten !

X