I have not been here for a while I am afraid mostly because all my writing efforts have been directed to the Gardens Collective which is, to be honest, more interactive and better paid. However, I feel it would be neglectful not to visit occasionally to check the post and fluff yup the cushions.
This visit was initiated by the onrush of Christmas and the fact that I was being offered a gingerbread scented car valeting service and it made me think of what other foods would be seasonally suitable for the air fresheners of cars. Gingerbread I can understand as I am pretty sure that the gingerbread house carries an essence of Christmas. The roof of the house is usually depicted covered in snow (an excuse for icing sugar) so it must be wintery and I can imagine a waft of warm gingerness wafting across a German Christmas market.
For summer the cliche scent is mown grass. Or maybe the strawberry Eton Mess. Incidentally, I may have droned on about this before, but the Eton mess you get in restaurants is a much fancier version than the original. Some of you may be aware that I was at school at that establishment for about five years (fun but very little work was done and an therefore not on the list of distinguished alumni) and the Eton mess was available in a place called Rowlands. This was part grocery/part cafe and sold the sort of thing that perennially starving teenage boys hankered after. Chips, sausages, tinned asparagus on brown bread and the like. The Eton mess sold consisted of a sliced banana (or strawberries in season) accompanied by a scoop of budget bucket Walls ice cream. There were no meringues or coulis or anything fancy or foreign like that.
Spring is about creme eggs – it is Easter after all. The slightly sickly sugar rush in a chocolate shell. Pretty good provided the shell remains solid and maybe even very slightly chilled. Melting chocolate is always an abomination. A creme egg that has been left in a pocket too long or, even worse, has been basking in the draught from a fan heater in a garage. Still it would be a good seasonal car freshener.
Autumn is not a foodstuff but a bonfire. The wave of acridity from a slow burning, slightly damp leaf pile tells you everything you ever needed to know about this season. You would have to park your car downwind of a good bonfire, open the doors and windows facing the fire and let the upholstery absorb it. Like the tweed jackets of my pipe smoking grandfather which always had the intoxicating smell of maturing Three Nuns tobacco. This is a classic pipe tobacco first manufactured in Scotland but now made (for some reason) in Denmark.
So there you go. A quick blog about air fresheners for no particular reason. I am pretty sure nobody but spambots visit this place but, if you are human, drop me a note. The photograph is of a ginger flower – which seemed vaguely appropriate.