Of The Unexpected

Well, life really is full of surprises, isn't it? I did not expect, this time last week, that I would now be sitting in my bed at home, dosed up to the eyeballs on penicillin and steroids, and awaiting the results of a blood test. But here I am! Last weekend, I developed an incredibly painful sore throat, which resulted in my barely being able to swallow anything, even water, without feeling as if my throat were being cut through with razor blades. I was generally weak and pitiful, and on Monday took myself off to the doctor, who took one look inside my mouth and recoiled, exclaiming 'Nasty!', before diagnosing me with suspected Glandular Fever. I was packed off to have a blood test the following morning, and should get the results tomorrow. In the meantime, my mum shot down to Oxford and whisked me away home to be looked after and pampered as I do my best Wilting Victorian Lady impression, and flit piteously between the bed and the sofa. My health has not been great for a few months now -- always a worry with my history of M.E. (which I suffered from badly between the ages of 14 and 18, with the odd relapse since) -- and obviously I need to be extra careful as I recuperate now. So it's going to be brake pedal on for a while, with regards to work and play. It's difficult having to miss out on the things I want to do, but several years of M.E. means that I have learned the necessity of listening to my body and not pushing myself to breaking point, and the doctor is hopeful that with catching this early, and throwing lots of medication at it, we can keep things contained.

To cheer myself up in the meantime, however, my mum and I have just arranged a couple of London adventures for her birthday at the end of June, by which time I hope to be back to something approaching full working order. We will be having an afternoon and evening filled with the best food and entertainment the capital has to offer, even managing to fit in a little bit of fashion as a matter of course -- in the best frivolous manner.

We'll be starting off with the Pret a Portea afternoon tea in the deliciously named Caramel Room at The Berkeley Hotel in Knightsbridge. I've been desperate to go here since I first heard about the fashionista fancies on offer at the tea table, and I only had to show a couple of these photos to my mum before she was completely captivated too:

(Images from The Berkeley Hotel's website)

Mmm. Doesn't it all look divine? Almost too good to eat. Almost...

After polishing off our pretty platefuls, we'll then be heading off in the evening to the Garrick Theatre to see their forthcoming production of Pygmalion. I saw Peter Hall's brilliant version of this at the Old Vic in 2008 with Michelle Dockery (recently so good in ITV's excellent series Downton Abbey -- if you get the chance do watch this if you missed it before Christmas!) as Eliza and the ever-dependable Tim Piggott-Smith as Professor Higgins. I am still wildly excited about this new production, however, as it stars one of my favourite actors: Rupert Everett. I am really looking forward to seeing what he brings to the role of Henry Higgins!

(Image from here)

For now, however, I am curling up under the duvet and making the most of my unexpected rest by (finally!) finishing my Persephone Reading Weekend book (watch out for a review soon, as well as a belated description of my time in London the other weekend). As well as this, I am (also finally) catching up with The Killing, a Danish crime drama which has been showing on BBC4 over recent weeks. Luckily for me, there is still some of the series to go, and the rest of it is still (just) available on the BBC iPlayer. I've heard so many good things about it, and have been wanting to watch it for ages without managing to find the time, so some enforced bed rest seems like the perfect opportunity. I have mentioned before how Sir W tells us in his 1600 essay 'Of Sleepe' that

'Fame neuer yet knewe a perpetuall bedpresser',

but for now, Fame will have to wait, as bedpressing is exactly what the doctor ordered!

Of Persephone Reading Weekend: The Beginning

Today marks the beginning of Persephone Reading Weekend, run by Verity and Claire. If you haven't already, do pay a visit to their blogs and check out their Persephone-related posts and competitions over this weekend. As I mentioned before, I'll be reading Dimanche and Others Stories over the next couple of days, as I never did get round to starting it before! It's one of the most recent publications by Persephone, and I'm really excited about reading it. I've never read Irene Nemirovsky's most famous book -- Suite Francaise -- but have heard so many excellent things about it that I plan to seek it out once I've finished these short stories. If I like them of course, but my past experience of Persephone tells me that I'm likely to! The last set of short stories published by them that I read was the utterly entrancing Tea with Mr Rochester by Frances Towers, so I am eagerly anticipating my next grey-covered venture into this genre.

I've had rather a painful few days with a wisdom tooth coming through -- and it's not over yet, unfortunately! -- so relaxing with a good book is exactly what I need. Although I also have a busy weekend coming up: a trip to consult some manuscripts at the British Library tomorrow, followed in the evening by my first trip to the Royal Opera House to see their exciting new production: Anna Nicole. I'll be reporting back on what I think of it next week! Then on Sunday it's up to Hampstead for a long overdue catch up lunch with skirmishofwit. All in all, it should be a lovely weekend (presuming my tooth allows me to eat!), and Dimanche will be the perfect travel companion on the train to London and back.

Until then, I leave you with a sentence from Sir W's 1600 essay 'Of Discontentments'. It might be my dentist, rather than Philosophy who told me to expect my own current tooth-ache, but I can't say that such preparation makes it particularly easier to 'entertain'...

'when any of these Tooth-aches of the body come, shee [Philosophy] teacheth that they are to be entertained, not as straungers, but as Familiars that we haue long expected'.

Of A Day of Delights

Last week, my mum and I had a trip to London to see Noel Coward's Private Lives, which is currently playing at the Vaudeville Theatre.

Rather than just heading to London in time for curtain up, however, we decided to go down a little earlier to make the most of being in the capital. We started off with a trip to the Victoria and Albert Museum, where we had hoped to see the exhibition of Grace Kelly's clothes which is currently showing there. As it was midway through a Monday afternoon, we hadn't expected it to be that busy, but we were sadly mistaken, and it turned out to be completely sold out for the rest of the day. Luckily the exhibition has only just begun, and there's plenty of time left for me to catch it before it closes on 26th September. I'll just make sure to book next time!

Instead, I went along to another exhibition currently showing at the V&A which I've been wanting to visit: Horace Walpole and Strawberry Hill. I've been interested in Walpole (the son of our first Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole) ever since I read his Gothic fantasy The Castle of Otranto, and he's even cropped up in the course of my research as he owned a manuscript version of a text of Sir W's (The Encomium of Richard III) which I've been working on recently. Walpole was one of the greatest collectors of the eighteenth century, and the exhibition was

filled with fascinating objects and paintings from his Gothic pile Strawberry Hill, such as this cabinet of curiosities:

Photo via the V&A website

Strawberry Hill, which stands on the outskirts of London in Twickenham, is currently being restored, and will be re-opening to the public later this year on Walpole's birthday: 24th September. I for one will definitely be going along to explore it!

After wandering around the atmospheric exhibition, my mum and I went for tea and cakes in the V&A's magnificent cafe, where I marvelled anew at the glittering chandeliers...

... intricately decorated ceilings and pillars ...

... and spectacular fireplaces:

I adored the entrancing combinations of patterns and textures all around me:

Once outside in the courtyard, I found much still to admire, both natural and manmade:

No visit to the V&A would be complete without a visit to their marvellous shop (I probably shouldn't admit this, but for some time my only experience of this fabled museum was the shop and the cafe. Oh, and the rooms devoted to historical fashions). I always love browsing there, and it's a great place to pick up birthday presents. This time, I managed to restrain my shopping impulses, although I did greatly enjoy the beautiful displays:

On the way out, I admired the combination of ancient and modern...

... before we made our way to Soho to enjoy a pre-theatre meal at Quo Vadis, a restaurant which has been recommended to us many times by skirmishofwit and ramblingfancy. I'm certainly very grateful for the suggestion, as my mum and I both had some excellent food there. I had began with a delicious sea bass cerviche

while my mum got to grips with these beauties:

I managed (with some difficulty!) to wangle a taste (in the name of research, of course) and can report that they were absolutely superb, and accompanied by a deliciously rich home-made mayonnaise. For the main course, I went for steak tartare, which I always enjoy. Quo Vadis's take on this French classic was good, and although I generally prefer it when the egg is already mixed in, I can't deny it looked very pretty:

After the meal, we managed to waddle our way outside and catch a cab to the Strand, nicely in time to buy a programme and settle down in our seats. I have never seen Private Lives performed on stage before, although I very much enjoyed a BBC Radio 4 dramatisation of it with Bill Nighy and Helena Bonham-Carter earlier this year. I was, however, in for a real treat at the Vaudeville. Matthew Macfadyen and Kim Cattrall were wonderful as Elyot and Amanda, and Lisa Dillon and Simon Paisley Day provided them with excellent foils as the long-suffering Sybil and Victor.

Photo via the Vaudeville Theatre website

The sparks simply flew between Macfadyen and Cattrall: the scene in which the two bickering ex-spouses count down the seconds during an enforced two-minute silence was filled with a bristling, hilarious tension, while the climatic fight scene between the supposedly happily reunited couple at the end of the second act was spectacularly well done. The leads did an excellent job of portraying the love-hate relationship between Amanda and Elyot, while the looks upon their faces during the spat between Victor and Sybil at the play's end said it all. Caroline Lena Olsson, playing Amanda's French maid in Paris, also displayed some great comic timing -- there was simply not a bad performance in sight.

All in all, a wonderful day, full of several delights. To quote Sir W (in his 1601 essay 'Of Popularitie'), it was one whose

'satisfaction rested as much in the varietie, as in the proffit'.

Of Being Out With The Old...

...and in with the new. A belated Happy New Year to everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful and peaceful Christmas and that 2010 has started well. I had a simply lovely time over the holiday, spending Christmas Day itself with my mum in the heart of a beautifully frosty Gloucestershire. Rather than stay at home for Christmas, we decided to take ourselves off to the Priory Inn in Tetbury, renowned for its excellent, locally sourced food. The restaurant has a 30 mile food policy, meaning that 90% of its ingredients come from nearby farmers. As they are just down the road from Highgrove, we were spoilt with scrumptious Duchy vegetables from the Home Farm there, to accompany the melt-in-the-mouth pigeon I had for a starter, and the truly delicious venison I chose for my main course. After the mock Christmas Day my friends and I had enjoyed in Oxford before the vacation, I felt I'd already had enough turkey to satisfy my seasonal craving! I was also happy to have the chance to show off a new dress I'd bought just before Christmas -- part of the collection designed by Coast only for sale in their outlets inside Debenhams. The meek and mild front...

... makes the pretty draped back a nice surprise, giving it an elegantly mischievous frisson which appealed to me:

I always love the chance to get dressed up, and Christmas is a great excuse as we toasted the season with some local (and surprisingly nice!) bubbly. I was also pleased to toast a particularly successful present haul, as I opened pretty parcels to find jewelry, gloves, a new watch, various other bits and pieces, as well as my current reading material -- Saplings by Noel Streatfeild -- and, some tokens of the best kind: one from the marvellous Persephone Books, to feed my grey cover fetish once Saplings is done with, and also some theatre tokens, which I'll be able to exchange for tickets to one or two of the many productions I want to see this year! Wonderful! Long-term readers might also be interested to know that my presents also included some of the beautiful travel guides from The Little Bookroom I wrote about here, and *all* of the beautiful items from Fey Handmade I lusted after here, courtesy of my lovely grandfather, who has obviously been keeping a weather eye on this blog! Thank you again, Grampa!

Boxing Day was spent with family back in Staffordshire, and so the festive season was a perfect combination of good food, relaxation, and good company. I was only at home for a week, which was just enough to refresh me before returning to Oxford just before the New Year, when an American friend was visiting from Los Angeles. He and I and another friend travelled together to London on New Year's Eve, joined by others to see in 2010 at another friend's flat there. We were all thrilled when it actually started snowing bang on the dot of midnight, as we crowded onto the balcony to watch the fireworks over the dark sky. Sadly my camera broke almost on the stroke of midnight as well, so the snowflakes were lost to posterity (this sad calamity also means my blog might be a little sparse when it comes to pictures while I get a new camera sorted out. Sigh).

I was particularly excited on New Year's Day, as my friends and I were -- as I mentioned in my last post -- off to see the much touted production of The Misanthrope at the Comedy Theatre that evening.

As I think I mentioned before, I was particularly eager to see Damian Lewis on stage, and I am glad to say I wasn't disappointed. He had tremendous energy and presence, and made a wonderful Alceste. Obviously the main draw for many in the audience was Keira Knightley, in her widely publicised theatre debut. Personally, I thought she was fine, but nothing more, and her American accent was unfortunately terribly distracting, and at times rather wavering (as my American friend, who is a BIG fan of KK, was forced to admit). She did, however, have a couple of very nice outfits! I particularly liked the 1930s-style silky black jumpsuit and black and gold drapey cardigan she wore in the first act, which you can see a detail of here:

The play itself, a modern reworking by Martin Crimp, sped along at a zipping, zinging pace, with the rhyming couplets flowing easily from most of the cast, as it rushed through its slim two hour running time (this included the interval -- it's a while since I've been out of an evening performance by 9.30!). I've never read Moliere's original, and seeing this really made me want to, so at some point I'll have to seek it out (although the sad state of my French means I'll probably be forced to read it in translation, unless I'm feeling very virtuous. And have a lot of spare time).

Since then, I've been back in Oxford, which has looked beautiful under the deepest covering of snow I've ever seen here. I can't believe my camera has died at such an inopportune moment! Still, I must admit I have been spending quite a large proportion of my time tucked up indoors, drinking much hot tea and snuggling under blankets, as (you may not be surprised to hear this) my footwear collection is not really very compatible with the icy conditions! It turns out that the only shoes or boots I have which have any tread on the soles at all (excluding, of course, The Walking Boots, which are huddled at the back of a cupboard at home -- little did I think I might have need of them away from the alpine slopes) are my new knee-high boots. Which have heels. Chunkyish heels, sure, but still heels, which is enough to make many passers-by give me sidelong glances and a wide berth as they wait for what they assume is the inevitable graceless topple. Luckily, this hasn't happened yet, and I am convinced that heels and tread is infinitely safer than flats and smooth sole. In comfort, I also draw upon my demonstrable (and long-honed skill) of walking in Adverse Weather Conditions in surprising footwear, rembering that skirmishofwit and I survived a three day sojourn in Paris last December without any mishap, despite the fact that we were both trotting (well, okay, Very Slowly Edging Our Way Along) over the icy pavements in ankle boots with, shall we say, heels of a height which might make some people question whether I truly do suffer from vertigo. Saying all this, I shall probably leave the library today and fall flat. Well, just as long as I don't damage my laptop!

Although I sincerely hope I don't injure myself before this evening, as tonight I am ... DRUM ROLL ... having my very first Pole Dancing Lesson. Yes, that's right: pole dancing. Two friends and I are going along tonight to be initiated into its wonders, having being reassured by another friend who is already a fan that it is excellent exercise, a great confidence booster, and quite simply a fabulously sexy and fun thing to do. We'll see! If I can move enough tomorrow to drag myself to my laptop, I'll be giving a report on my first experience. Talking of which, I'd better go, as my friend and I are meeting up shortly to buy some hotpants which, for some reason, neither of us happened to have lying around our wardrobes already...

Although my posts have never been entirely regular, I've so much enjoyed having my blog over the tail end of 2009, and I look forward to continuing with it this year. And what better start to 2010's blogging than to find that I've been given A Lovely Blog Award!

Many thanks to Karen at BookBath for this! The idea of the award is that if you receive one, you then give it to others, so I'll be nominating some lovely blogs of my own over the next couple of days, as well as sharing with you tales from snowy Amsterdam, and a few other bits and pieces. I can't wait! Thanks so much to everyone who's been reading and commenting over the last few months -- I never thought that anyone I didn't actually know would ever read what I wrote, and it's added so much to my enjoyment to 'talk' to you all in the comments section!

Rather than leaving you with the usual quotation from Sir W, I thought some of you might like to see this wonderful engraving from the 1632 edition of his Essayes, by Thomas Cecill. There is an old story that the two men are Sir W and his father, Sir Charles, but as they look more like twins than father and son, this hardly seems the case. So sadly it brings us no closer to knowing what Sir W looked like, although that he was wonderfully dashing seems unquestionable. Well, through my rose-tinted eyes, anyway...

Of Life is a Dream

I'm playing catchup at the moment, so things are a little out of order. Hence, after telling you about my Saturday evening's activities in my post yesterday, I now need to backtrack to share with you all the delights of my Friday night's entertainment. I was at a conference about translation in the Early Modern period, held at St. John's College, on both Friday and Saturday. The talks were fascinating, but on Friday I had to slip off after the morning session, in order to meet up with my mum and catch the bus to London. I spent the entire bus journey in a state of High Excitement, for that evening we were first going to enjoy a delicious meal at one of my favourite London restaurants, and then we had a date with Dominic West at the Donmar Warehouse, to see one of my most highly anticipated theatre events of the season: Life is a Dream.

The evening got off to a great start with dinner at the lovely Mon Plaisir in Covent Garden's Monmouth Street. We were early enough to have the chance to wander around Covent Garden first, and I managed to pick up a couple of Christmas presents, as well as one or two things for myself (!) in between admiring the festive decorations and laughing at the street acts that crowd the piazza. Mon Plaisir is London's oldest French restaurant, and it is always a good choice for excellent but reasonably priced Gallic cuisine. On Friday evening I enjoyed a particularly good duck pate with grated truffle, before moving on to some delicious partridge. I was also particularly pleased to spy a favourite red wine on the restaurant's list: Bourgogne Passetoutgrains, a glass of which was the perfect accompaniment to my meal.

We were both too full for pudding, so skipped the final course in order to make our way around the corner to the Donmar. After having enjoyed my first visit there earlier this year, I was very much looking forward to returning. I was also highly excited about seeing the play itself, as I know very little about Spanish Golden Age theatre, despite the fact that I work on seventeenth-century English literature. Life is a Dream (or, to give it its original title, La vida es sueno) was written by the Spanish playwright Pedro Calderon de la Barca, and was first published in 1635. A little later than Sir W, therefore, but certainly well within my period of interest (even if I somehow seem to have moved away from studying any fiction in recent years!).

I must also admit, however, that not a little of my excitement arose from the fact that I was about to see Dominic West in the flesh, only a few feet away from me *swoon*. Regular readers may remember this picture of him from my rather gratuitous use of it in an earlier post, but I hope you'll excuse me if it makes another appearance here...

I have been a fan of Mr West's since my obsession with The Wire began earlier this year, and so I was really thrilled to be able to see him on stage. And I must say that neither he nor the play itself disappointed me.

The play revolves around West's character, Segismundo, a prince who has been kept ignorant of his true status, locked up throughout his life in an isolated tower. This is thanks to his father's belief in a prophecy which predicts that Segismundo will grow up to be a terrible tyrant, who will ruin his country and its people. At the time the play begins, however, the King has begun to question his actions, wondering whether, in attempting to forestall the prophecy, he may, in true Oedipul style, in fact have created the monster he sought to contain. The King's feelings of guilt lead him to give Segismundo one day of freedom, in which he will be presented with the knowledge of his true identity, and allowed to act as he sees fit. If he proves a just ruler, he will be given his freedom for always, but if the prophecy comes true, and he acts as a despot, he will be thrown back into his tower and told, upon awakening, that his day as a prince was only a dream. There are sub-plots involving wronged women, lost children, and various political and romantic intrigues, but the main focus always revolves around Segismundo, and the questions of free will and fate, nature and nurture, truth and delusion, sanity and madness.

The entire cast was excellent. To mention just a few: Rupert Evans (whom I had recently enjoyed as Frank Churchill in the BBC's recent adaptation of Emma) made a funny and suitably charming cad, Kate Fleetwood was a steely and vital Rosaria, and Sharon Small was at once regal and vulnerable. Dominic West, however, excelled, with his Segismundo being fiery, dangerous and cruel one minute, comically school-boyish the next, and pathetic and heartbreakingly confused a moment afterwards.

Ultimately, it is a story of redemption, of family, and of second chances, and I found the play deeply moving, as well as comic and exhilarating in turns. Helen Edmundson's adaptation zipped along at a fantastic pace, and I enjoyed her very modern translation, which was fresh and fast and funny. I left the theatre feeling revitalized and very happy, and looking forward even more to my next Donmar venture: Red, a new play about Philip Roth starring Alfred Molina, which I'm going to see in February.

My love of the theatre is something that Sir W shared, and in a change from normal, I leave you today with a couple of lines not from his Essayes, but from a verse epistle he wrote to his close friend, the poet John Donne (another of my favourite Early Moderns). The letter is preserved in a manuscript here in Oxford, at the Bodleian, and it makes me think that I'd have enjoyed a night out on the tiles with this pair. Or, indeed, an afternoon at the theatre, as Sir W encourages his friend to do here:

'If then, for change, for howers you seem careles,

Agree with me to lose them at the playes'.

Of Catching Up

Well, that was a slightly longer break than I'd intended! I can't believe it's actually over a month since I last blogged, but life rather Got Too Much for a little while (and we also had the usual faff of setting up the internet -- why do these things always take SO LONG??). I had a great holiday in Rhodes: relaxing in the pool...

... enjoying the beautiful scenery ...

... and eating far too much Good Food ...

Although I think my favourite meal of the holiday has to have been the octopus which my half-brother caught (using a rather fearsome looking spear gun) in the bay which lay at the bottom of our garden. Not something I'm used to in Oxford! There's something so special about a lazy meal outdoors under a blistering blue sky, with the sea lapping away and the sound of cicadas on the breeze. Since I've been back I've tried my hand at recreating a few of the simpler dishes we ate there, although it's never quite the same at home. One of my favourites for a starter or a light lunch is rocket with figs and parma ham, drizzled with balsamic vinegar (admittedly all the better when the figs are from a tree at the bottom of the garden, perilously claimed by clambering along the rocks like a mountain goat, whilst trying not to be tripped up by the *actual* wild goats prancing about the hillside). Watching my dad whiz up some black olive tapenade also inspired me to have a go at making my own for the first time, which I did with the aid of Clotilde Dusoulier's wonderfully easy recipe from her delightful book Chocolate & Zucchini (based on her equally brilliant blog. I also highly recommend her foodie guide to Paris, which skirmishofwit and I used on our trip to the French capital last December).

I made the tapenade as part of a selection of canapes for Our Very First Dinner Party at the New House, and I must admit I'm rather proud to say it proved popular. Yes, that's right, I've moved in, and the house is slowly starting to feel like home. At the moment I'm just awaiting the arrival of a new double bed and a chest of drawers (the landlord obviously has No Conception of the amount of closet space a girl requires). And this morning my mum brought the last load of my stuff from home, so I now have my posters, my books, and all the various bits and pieces that really make a room feel like mine. All I need to do now is finish unpacking... I'm really enjoying settling in, both to the house and to the new area. Although it might sound silly to anyone who knows Oxford, and how small it is, relatively speaking, I barely knew St Clements at all (in fact, I'd rarely made the journey over the Magdalen Bridge...), so it feels quite exciting to have a new space to explore. I'm already starting to find new restaurants, and a new pub has just opened down the road which I'm looking forward to trying.

The past couple of weeks have been busy, with getting back to the swing of things in the library (today I was working in the New College Archives, transcribing a diary from the 1680s -- great fun!), but I've also managed to fit in a couple of trips to London. The weekend before last I went with friends to see A Streetcar Named Desire at the Donmar Warehouse. I was particularly excited about this, as I had actually tried to book tickets alongside my reservations for Life Is A Dream (Dominic West!! *swoon*) and Red, but it had sold out almost immediately -- perhaps due to the casting of Rachel Weisz as Blanche DuBois. So when a friend had a couple of tickets going spare for the penultimate performance, I was all too keen to snap one up. It was my first trip to the Donmar (previously I had only seen their Donmar Westend season at Wyndham's), and I really loved the theatre itself, so I'm looking forward to going back in November for more reasons than just Mr West's presence (*cough*). As for the play itself, I've never actually read it, nor seen the famous film version (although now I want to do both!), so in some ways I guess it was good to see it without too many preconceptions. On the whole, I thought it was a great production: the cast in general was excellent, and Rachel Weisz was both fragile and feisty as Blanche. I particularly liked Ruth Wilson as Stella. The one disappointment was Elliot Cowan as Stanley. Perhaps this is just my personal taste, but I didn't think he had nearly enough charisma or simply just raw sex appeal, and the scenes between him and Weisz were sadly flat: there was really no chemistry there to spark them into life, and the rape scene lacked the emotional punch it needed to deliver to the audience. This was the only downside, however, and on the whole I really enjoyed the performance. After the show (a matinee), we went to Bob Bob Ricard for a pre-dinner drink (I enjoyed my cocktail which I chose on the sole basis that it involved Earl Grey syrup!), which was atmospheric and wonderfully decorated, and we then went on to Vasco and Piero's for an excellent meal afterwards. Both of these places were new to me, but I'd definitely go back to either. We rounded the night off swaying along in Ain't Nothin' But: The Blues Bar, before catching the Oxford Tube home.

I was back in London last weekend, this time staying with skirmishofwit, for some more good food and excellent company. We and some friends enjoyed lovely Japanese and Italian restaurants in Hampstead, a relaxing stroll on the Heath (I was rather glad to be back to the type of walks which don't require The Boots), and even fitted in some retail therapy. When I turned 21 a couple of years ago, my mum took me to Florence for a city break. I had a wonderful time: I loved the city, and could have spent much longer there. One of my discoveries was the Officina Profumo-Farmaceutica di Santa Maria Novella. Tucked away behind an unprepossessing little door, one enters into a spectacular interior, a space which is beautiful in itself whilst also being filled with the most delicious bath products and perfumes. Founded in 1612 as a monastery, Santa Maria is a now must-visit for anyone at all interested in scent. While I was there I bought some of their honeysuckle perfume -- a delicate and unusual scent which is perfect for every day use. My bottle is now running low, so imagine my delight when I discovered recently that They Have A Branch In London. (Also in Paris, in case you're planning a trip). The London shop is on Walton St in South Kensington, itself definitely worth a visit, and another is shortly due to open near to the Royal Academy (yay!). Although the shop itself is not as beautiful as the Florentine original, the charm of the perfumes has not been diminished, and I was tempted by many (I liked the sound of Nostalgia, which claimed to have a hint of petrol -- one of my Favourite Smells Ever ... yes, I know, the strangeness of this has been commented upon -- but a spritz of it almost knocked me out. It was definitely more of a masculine scent -- in fact, on the right man, I think it would be superb. The trouble, of course, is finding the right man). In the end, however, although Tuberose was a strong contender (rather heavier, and definitely more of an evening scent -- maybe next time!), I remained loyal to my Caprifoglio and came away with another extremely pretty bottle to add to my collection:

Well, it's good to be back, and I shall Be A Better Blogger in future: or at least, like Sir W in the aptly named 'Of Resolution' (1600),

'I write thus, I thinke thus, and I hope to do thus'.