I believe that yesterday I banished the last of the pine needles from our hallway and sitting room. A real tree is the heart of the festive season’s fragrance profile. Even a dustpan full of dropped needles in January has a fragrance. Not the same as a tree freshly felled and loaded into a warm car. But definitely a recognisable smell of Winter.

The smell of Winter, Melbourne style is the vapour that you can see in this picture.

My sense of smell and taste has been shredded by Covid. I suspect what I am left with is unlikely to change. I mourned  my changed sense of smell and taste in the beginning but now I celebrate the flavours and fragrances I have retained. I was never timid about sniffing or eating but now there  is a new/old world of things to explore that previously I might not have liked.  I also have a newfound certainty about fragrance and taste.

I like it.

I don’t like it.

I have no opinion.

All the liminal areas of taste and smell no longer exist.

So when I walked into The Block Arcade and smelled something wonderful outside Essensorie then I had to have a closer sniff

A bottle of their Christmas Spice Essential Oil came home with me.

Blood Orange and Rose Geranium would have been the two scents that hooked me in. Anything citrusy is my gateway to flavour and smell. Geranium is a new  fragrance friend, eating it would be quite a stretch. Previously I just couldn’t wholeheartedly love it. Now I could roll in a field of geraniums like a frolicsome pony in hay or a kitten in Catnip.

I did neither of those things in their stylish and peaceful shop. I just calmly bought a bottle of their potion.

Essensorie | Artisanal Natural Fragrance https://share.google/0XyqhScCeiEccP7lF

Nobody needs a giddy goat in a shop just before closing time.