Honeysuckle Creme Perfume

I am feeling nostalgic this week.  I have been day dreaming about those long hot summers of yester year when we wore shorts and sleeveless tee-shirts.  There was an ‘expert’ talking on the radio today and she assured me that this unseasonal weather is in fact typically seasonal.   I refuse to believe her.  I have worn my sandals twice this summer and it is most annoying not to be able to feel the grass tickle my feet.

Anyway, the honeysuckle at the front of the house thinks it is summer.  When we moved here 8 years ago it was a straggly old thing in the privet hedge and was completely swamped by the ash tree on the boundary with the footpath.  It also received a major hair cut every time the hedge was trimmed.   But, a couple of years ago we decided to rejuvenate the ash tree by having it pollarded in the hope this would encourage it to smarten up and become more attractive to look at from the kitchen window.  Our friend, the Tree Man, said it would take a couple of years for the tree to regenerate and indeed it has. 

For the first time the ash tree looks nice and during the period when it was busy with some serious re-growing, the honeysuckle has been set free.   Doc has taken care to trim the hedge around it and this year, the honeysuckle is a mass of yellow and pink flowers.  In the evenings, it has a wonderful scent which fills the air and follows us down the garden path to the back of the house. 

Honeysuckles are associated with the English country gardens and yet they are strangely exotic. They are unruly, they scramble and drape themselves up trees and pergolas with unmemorable foliage but when the flowers emerge, the scent almost knocks you off your feet.  So sweet and heady is the perfume that you feel intoxicated with only one sniff.

When I was about twelve years old, my mother said I was old enough to choose something from the Avon catalogue.  She distracted me from the page with the red lipstick and encouraged me to try some crème perfume.  The following week, I was so excited about its impending arrival that I rode my bike up and down the street for an hour, checking the Avon Lady’s progress with her deliveries.  When my turn came, it was like opening a jewel box.  I had my very own little pot of Honeysuckle perfume.

Needless to say, I did not use my crème perfume sparingly and when my nanna called she did not mince her words.  She said I smelled like ‘a tart’.  Thus began a rather stilted conversation between me and my mother, which I won’t go into here.

So from then on my love for honeysuckle was secured for life.  We have 6 different ones dotted around the garden, including an evergreen one which grows in the shade, as well as a new shrubby variety.  As for the one at the front of the house, we don’t know its name but we do know that it has been waiting a long time for its special moment to shine.  I do hope this year’s show of flowers is not its swansong.