Life of Pi

So we went to see Life of Pi at the Tivoli in Tiverton (MUCH better than the Odeon).  Adrian declined the invitation so James and I fist-bumped and bought shedloads of the rustliest packets of crap we could find. 

Hate to say it but the Subaru performed rather nicely – in fact it positively flew along the valley road.  Now if I could only find a parking space where its bum doesn’t hang over the end…

Anyhow.  I’d read the book, by Yann Martel, and had kind of enjoyed it, although (to be honest) I really couldn’t remember a whole lot about it other than that the boy ends up on a lifeboat with a tiger and that there was a sneaky twisty ending.  But that was good, cos it meant I didn’t demand the movie stack up to the book.

Let’s cut to the chase:  I loved it.  From the opening scenes the cinematography is just captivating – it has the strangest quality of light – a perfect clarity combined with a softness, almost a sweetness (I know that’s a paradox but, sorry, that’s how it felt). The CGI of the animals is pretty incredible but they did lose me just a bit when some scenes went over-the-top (the whale was a stretch too far for me, as was Pi's mum’s face appearing in the sky – schmaltzy and unworthy, but hey, only a few bum notes).

The scenes of India at the start are simply stunning.  I could almost smell the flowers and spices, feel the humidity, find my hands yearning to twist into mudras, my feet itching to dance.  And how wonderful is young Pi who sees no problem in being, simultaneously, a Hindu, a Christian and a Muslim?  In fact, he even wonders if three is enough.  A boy after my own heart.

The whole movie has a dream-like quality about it.  Even the brutality, unexpected and shocking when it comes, is true to the nature of dreams.  My mother used to dream, repeatedly, of a large cat following her, padding quietly into the room, or jumping silently onto her bed, moving up the covers towards her face while she lay in terror.  A Jungian would probably say that the wild beast symbolizes dangerous uncontrolled emotions, disruptive forces, the animal passions and instincts. And Pi, of course, is a boy on the brink of manhood. 

But let’s not analyze it too much, eh?  I certainly didn’t – I just sat back (with the occasional rustle) and let the dream pick me up and take me with it.  What is real?  What is up; what is down? What is within, what without?  Is anything what it seems?  Does it matter?

The boy discovers that he needs his antagonist.  The tiger – both his fear of it and his need to look after it - keeps him alive.  Oh yes. 

The adult Pi says that his story will make you believe in God.  Does it?  I don’t think so. Not really. And I had the same feeling of being slightly cheated by the ending as I did when I finished the book – clever but..a little pat. I’d rather stay with the beauty, with the awesome beauty of the heights of ocean and the depths of sky; with the vastness of space and time and two creatures watching one another cautiously from either end of a small boat. 

PS – Someone, anyone, send me to India. Now. Please. 

In case you haven't seen it - check out the trailer....

Oh, and no, we didn't see it in 3-D.  

Living life with passion

The natural world is full to bursting in August - nothing is held back, nothing is begrudged or stinted.  Maybe we can learn by watching this wholesale giving.  There are times when we need to conserve our physical energy but this isn't one of them.  And it is certainly not a time to hold back emotionally.  In fact if we learn to live life with pure passion and joy we could find life a much more delightful place. 

You know how some people are so passionate, so full of life and the joys of living that they virtually leave you breathless?  Well, why shouldn't we all have that sense of wonder and delight?  It doesn't mean that we have to become different people; just that we try to introduce a little verve and enthusiasm into our daily lives.

People think of passion as something that is inevitably to do with sex. Well yes, it is, but passion itself is much deeper than just sex.  It can touch every corner of our lives.

I learnt a great deal about the power of passion from the absolutely gorgeous American lecturer and workshop leader Denise Linn who is the living embodiment of passion.  A five minute conversation with her is enough to kick-start your whole week.  ‘Passion is about living life to the full; it's about excitement; about making life really worth living,’ she says.   But surely passion is something you simply either have or you don't have?  How can you learn to be passionate?  Denise says that, although as children we are naturally passionate creatures, as we go through our teens and into adult life we gradually learn not to be passionate.   

We are taught that to be an adult is to be calm, in control, rational, considered - even cynical.  The passion is inexorably drawn out of us until we have forgotten what it means to cry at a sunset, to become lost in a painting, to giggle like a child.

Society regards passion as emotion out of control, as an irrational force that, left to run wild, would grind industry to a halt within the day.  In fact quite the opposite is true.  Live your life with passion and you will become more effective in your work, more pleasant to live with and, most importantly, you will enjoy life to the full.

Denise insists that risk and passion go hand in glove. By learning to confront our fears of looking stupid, of making fools of ourselves, we can begin to take risks in life.  Once we believe we can stretch ourselves and do more, we can start to find out what we really want to do with our lives:  instead of living life safely, we will begin living passionately, to the full. 

DENISE’S TEN POINT PLAN FOR RECLAIMING PASSION

1.  Look back and remember what made you passionate as a child.  Tune in to that sense of childhood joy and maybe try reclaiming some of those activities.

2.  Think about what you are passionate about now.  What activities make you really lose yourself?  What causes are you passionate about?  Get involved.

3.  What stops you being passionate?  Work out what beliefs or anxieties prevent you from living with passion.

4.  Take risks.  Even small risks help you to push through your fear boundaries and gain confidence.  Be willing to make mistakes.

5.  Be kind.  Random acts of kindness (leaving a flower on desks at work, feeding a stranger's parking meter if it's run out) have a chain-reaction, making everyone feel good.

6.  Make a commitment to include activities you really enjoy into your life. 

7.  If you hate your job, find something - however small - that you can enjoy in it. 

8.  Imagine you were at the end of your life, looking back.  What would have given you fulfillment that you didn't do?  What would you regret not having done?  Why not do it now?

9.  Maintain passionate relationships by keeping your imagination alive.  Be spontaneous every so often - whisk your partner off for a picnic, buy a surprise present.

10.  Get in touch with your body.  Experiment with movement and music.  Crank up the music and street dance round the kitchen.  Dance is a wonderful means of freeing the straightjacket self.

This is an edited extract from the August chapter of my book The Natural Year – a seasonal guide to holistic health and beauty. Now available in e-format for Kindle and containing a lot of previously unpublished material.  The book is a season by season, month by month guide to living in tune with the natural world. 

"I read (and re-read!) this book many years ago and it inspired me and filled me with great hope. After loaning the book to several friends it eventually found a new home and I hope someone is now enjoying it as much as I did then! The philosophy seems so simple, yet it is so meaningful..." (from Amazon.com review)

I have kept the price low - about £2 from Amazon.co.uk or $3 from Amazon.com - so, if you fancy living more in tune with the seasons of the year, go buy. :-)

Heaven in Somerset...

I’ve been pretty spoiled over the years. Having worked as a health and beauty journalist (mainly for the Mail and the Telegraph) for decades I've been pampered every which way. I’ve had all manner of facials in all kinds of fancy spas and top-notch hotels.  And, I have to be honest, most of them really weren’t that special. Given the choice between a facial and a massage, I’d generally choose the massage every time. I mean, there’s only so much can be done with a facial, right?  You get your skin cleansed and exfoliated, they slap on serum, chuck on a mask (or ‘masque’), maybe zap a few blackheads, massage in a bit of moisturiser…you know the score.  Or you get wired up and have currents shoved through your skin or whatever.  And yes, often your skin looks a fair bit better but it’s just not…terribly satisfying really. 

In fact, the only facial that really rocked my boat over the years was the treatment (no way can I call it a mere facial) I had from Annee de Mamiel. Now, even if I could afford Annee (which, needless to say, I can't) her waiting list is longer than the phone directory. However…oh yes… I have discovered something and someone rather special, right here in Somerset.

I came across Nicki Hughes on Twitter. Then we met for a coffee in Taunton and I liked her. She seemed like a pretty smart businesswoman with a fair dollop of soul (instead of expanding her salon business and becoming effectively a suit, she decided to pull it back and keep herself hands on with a small beauty and therapy centre based at her home in Curry Rivel, near Langport.)

Anyhow, to cut a long story short, she offered me a facial and, looking at myself in the mirror I figured it would probably be a blessing.  I expected something nice, something functional and professional. What I didn’t expect was to be blown sideways.

She was raving about Repêchage, a US skincare system that relies heavily on…er…seaweed.  Now seaweed is all well and good, and packed with great stuff (vitamins, minerals, trace elements, amino acids, antioxidants) but it’s never really rocked my boat. ‘Nooo,’ said Nicki as we sat on the sofa in the rather bijoux treatment centre (oak floors, marble coffee table and delicious graphic paintings from Thailand).  ‘You’ll love this. They extract the seaweed in a particular way, cryo-crushing it…’

Cryowhatting it? 

‘They spin it in a centrifuge. And seaweed is wonderful because it has a very similar molecular structure to that of the skin, so the body absolutely drinks it up.’

Fair enough.  Anyhow, she got me to fill in a questionnaire and laughed out loud when my answer to ‘How do you relax?’ was ‘Twitter’.  Then she took a good look at my skin and pondered. Turns out Nicki prefers it if people don’t come in wanting a particular facial; she likes to advise and come to an agreement about which would be best. Oh hallelujah! At last! The one thing that really puzzles me is when you go to a spa and are presented with this list of treatments a mile long and are expected to choose.  It’s like a surgeon saying, ‘Look, here’s a list of all the ops I do – go on, you pick the procedure.’ You go to an expert because they’re an expert, right?  Garn, it’s a no-brainer surely?  So she said it was a toss-up between the Four Layer facial which chucks a shedload of moisture back in the skin or the VC5 which is all about firming and toning. 

‘Can I have both?’ I said.

‘Nope,’ she said. And so I went for the VC5 because it sounded suitably technical.

Her therapy room is huge, light and airy, and overlooks the garden. Had a brief love-in with  Bob the dog (soppy hairy cross between a collie and an arctic wolf) before he wandered back out.  Oohed and aahed over Nicki’s singing bowls and insisted on a quick blast - tingles right down the spine. Then stripped off my top layers (many) down to my bra and snuggled under the blankets on the most comfortable couch ever. Why don’t all places have couches that actually hold you without putting your back into spasm?

What happened after that?  Ummm…  Errr…..  Aaaahhhh….   I am usually really really good at remembering all the various stages and steps but not this time.  Cos this wasn’t just a facial; this was healing…serious full-on healing combined with a beautiful, assured touch and gentle caring.  I tell you, the woman is magic, sheer magic.  Most therapists will pop on the mask or whatever and go off, leaving you twiddling your thumbs and listening to the monotonous sub-Enya musak. Nicki never left the table.  I had my head massaged, my arms massaged, my neck de-stressed.  And at the mask bit, she darn well did Reiki on me.  Time just…vanished. 

‘That was…just…ummm…wow,’ I said afterwards.  Actually I think I just mumbled incoherently. Really, I’d lost the power of speech.  

‘Do you do that stuff on everyone?’ I asked. Eventually…I’m editing out a lot of umms and aaahhs here.

‘Yes, but I don’t always talk about it. Some clients don’t really want to know. They just think they’re getting a straightforward facial and that’s fine. 

Did my skin look different?  Not particularly but then Nicky hadn’t promised any miracles. It felt good though – clean and (it might be wishful thinking but) firmer.

I drove home on auto-pilot, so chilled that even the truck pulling out on me as I was overtaking on the M5 didn’t really faze me.  But, once home, I just sort of collapsed into a heap.  It felt like someone had taken a whole pile of crap out of me and dumped it in the bin.  Try as I might I couldn’t keep awake so I threw myself into the bath (with a handful of Repêchage Sea Spa salts).  And then I crawled into bed and…slept.  Deeply, blissfully, refreshingly.  Woke feeling like a whole new person.  And then I looked in the mirror and wow, I looked like a whole new person too. My skin looked clear and almost..glowing.  And so so soft. 

I know this sounds like a total puff but, believe me, I don’t rave about stuff unless it’s really really good.  I’ve got myself into all kinds of trouble with my honesty before but I’m not about to change. If I like something, I say so. If I don’t, I say so (or just keep my mouth shut). But I wholeheartedly recommend Nicki and, if you live within driving distance of Taunton (she’s roughly 15 mins away from the town) I would seriously suggest you get yourself booked in.  She doesn’t just do facials either… I’m eyeing up the massage menu and am intrigued by the idea of Theta DNA healing too.  Plus you can get all the usual beauty malarkey – waxing, tinting, electrolysis etc. Go on – check it out.

Wayside House, Curry Rivel, Somerset. 

Meanwhile I’m checking out the Repêchage range of skincare at home. So far, so good. Find out more (and find a list of local spas/salons using the range) here.

Second thing

Second thing.  A skinny Amazon envelope. I hadn’t ordered anything.  I opened it, slowly, with a slight frown. Leonard Cohen’s new album. Old Ideas.  I didn’t even need to look at the note to know who it was from. ‘Lots of love, Horace.’  My oldest dearest friend, Jane.  Horace? Well, that’s another story.

What can I say? I love Leonard Cohen. Deeply. Passionately. Always have. Suspect I always will.

I love music, hate to be without it, but most of my musical loves wax and wane.  But Cohen has been a constant in my life since I was, what?  Eight or nine maybe?  My brother came home with Songs of Leonard Cohen one day and we all fell in love, instantly.  Well, not my father perhaps. 

There was always music in our house when I was a child. All sorts. Shedload of classical in the living room.  Meanwhile, up in our shared room, my teenage sister played singles obsessively as she shimmied from one love to another; a string of boyfriends breaking her heart (rarely) but mainly having theirs broken.  The soundtrack to all this longing: Dusty Springfield, Sandie Shaw, The Beatles, Marianne Faithfull, the Stones. Then she met a guitarist and it was all Hendrix and Clapton, Cream and Yes. And I danced behind, entranced. But throughout, Cohen’s mesmerising guitar and his poetry always plucked at our hearts.

Songs from a Room followed by Songs of Love and Hate. And I wasn’t even out of junior school. Nobody suggested it wasn’t suitable listening for a child. Was it?

Jane and I met in 1971 but we didn’t become friends until quite some years later. After the release of New Skin for the Old Ceremony for sure and in time to be appalled by the radical shift of Death of a Lady’s Man. What was he thinking?  He’d wanted a spare sparse sound for Songs of Leonard Cohen – yes, even more sparse than it already was. So how did he come to be seduced by Spector?  Apparently he (Cohen) called the end result ‘grotesque’. Yeah, right. It’s a shame as the songs themselves are beautiful – but the arrangements are overblown, barbaric. I tried listening again today – and couldn’t bear it. Had to find later arrangements on YouTube.

I took Leonard with me to college; played him in my tiny coffin-shaped attic room, letting his growl of a voice stream out over my balcony into the streets below. Listened to him as I looked across the houses into other people’s lives, the students and the prostitutes.  And went to see him live in Manchester, at the Apollo. My first ‘grown-up’ gig, the first time I’d seen people sit in their seats for a whole set. The first time I’d seen people strike matches or hold up lighters and sway to the music. The audience felt old too – middle-aged women, not students like me. I didn’t care – I still loved him.

He came back to London with me and was there, not played so often maybe, but still a friend for the dark nights of the soul, when the drink and drugs and clubbing didn’t take me far enough away from myself.

We weren’t such close companions during my time in America because, really, there were so many other, new sounds to hear and somehow he didn’t feel right in those big wide open spaces of sea and endless roads and desert and canyon and prairie. But then, every so often, I’d sit by the fire late at night and pull out an album and let his chords pull me back home.

And yes, back to London we went and by now people laughed. ‘Gloomy old Leonard Cohen’ they said. But no, no, no. Not gloomy. Not really. Just so beautiful. I didn’t buy any more albums though, not after the travesty of DoaLM.   My mother stayed faithful though – bought each and every one. But I wouldn’t listen. I stayed with the old.  Until, not so many years ago, when I heard Hallelujah and found myself in floods of tears.  Who the hell sang that, I wondered and found out it was Jeff Buckley. Raced out and bought more of his stuff only to find that, no, he hadn’t written it – the cheater – it was Leonard’s.  Well, of course it was.

I saw him live again, a few years ago, at the O2 stadium, the old Millennium Dome. Jane again. ‘Come and stay, I’ve got tickets for Leonard Cohen,’ she said.  In Manchester I’d been right near the front, close enough to watch his fingers flicker over the frets. But the only tickets left this time were pitched up so high I felt dizzy.  Incredible musicians. Amazing man.  He’d lost the lot by this point, been ripped off, gone bankrupt, had to sing for his supper once more.

Funny thing, I never knew much about his actual life. I don’t read biographies. I rarely read interviews. I don’t even really like music vids (except the most vague and atmospheric) as they colour the music for me. I like to make my own relationship with music; to weave my own stories around it.

And so here I am, all those years on, sitting in a cold room, once again, listening to Cohen. Today I have been through all his albums, one by one.  Some songs wash over me; some catch me in the throat, in the solar plexus, in the heart. Who needs words when you’ve got Cohen, eh?

Favourite album? The new one is growing on me.  Ah hell. Songs of Leonard Cohen has some of my all-time favourite songs.  It’s tight.  Between that and New Skin for the Old Ceremony. Both just plain agonisingly beautiful. Songs? We could be here a long time. Here are just two. One from the first, one from the last. Which would be my middle one? My second thing?  Ah, I wonder.  

‘oooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMmmmmm…’

What else happened in the Labyrinth, a year ago?  What was the other big big trigger?  Meditation.  Yeah. Meditation.

I used to try to meditate; I used to try really hard.  I tried all sorts.  Try, try, try.  But, hey, the trying kinda wrecks it.  It doesn’t have to be hard. Really. Just stop trying and be. Then it’s easy; it’s like falling off a log.

Now I’m a meditation junkie. I meditate all over the space, all the time.  Really, I’m a sucker for it.  Cos, see/feel/hear, you don’t have to sit in the lotus position and contemplate your navel (though I love that too and actually, it is kinda like the seven course gourmet dinner rather than the quick supermarket sandwich – but hey, both have their place).  Meditation is really nothing more or less than being in the now; it’s being everywhere and nowhere (baby), all over the Space, playing in Time.  Meditation puts you right with yourself and right with the world.  

See, I didn’t start meditating and breathing cos I was exercising and eating right – it was exactly the other way round. All thanks to my quasi-guru, of course. So, if you struggle with all the eating and exercising thing, I’d say – put it to one side for now – just breathe and meditate.  Do that and I figure everything out will sort itself out.

Every morning, when I wake up, I do a small meditation, a kind of ‘Hello’ moment of waking awareness.  As I walk the SP in the woods, I meditate by focusing on my steps, being a part of every footfall.  I often stop at the top of the hillfort and lean into my tree with a heartfelt sigh and breathe and breathe and breathe and feel my tree breathing with me and sometimes the whole forest joins in, the trees above and the earth below, and it is pure bliss.  And sometimes we all just kinda go ‘oh what the hell?’ and expand out and have a bit of a love-in with the whole fecking cosmos. And that’s usually when the dentist chooses to walk past and asks if I’m alright. J  And I go, ‘Yeah. Yourself?’  And he says, ‘Looks like a nice day.’ Or whatever.

This morning I stopped by the river.  Just stared at it, watching the dark shadows swarming; the little eddies turning water into kiss curls; busy, busy, busy. Knowing that underneath all that surface froth and fizz and fandango was a steady flowing, a deep knowing moving steadily, inexorably towards the sea.  All that turbulent whirling just like surface mind really, all drama and worry and angst.  I tell ya, I could have stayed there for hours, hours upon hours…

And, lovely thing, my dear online friend Susie whom I met for real in Israel, sent me a book a few days back.  It’s called God Makes the Rivers to Flow (Passages for Meditation).  She wrote in it:

‘I happened across this book in a 2^nd hand store in Las Vegas & I knew it was meant for you…’

Eknath Easwaran, the guy that selected the passages in it (from a wide range of spiritual teachings) says a whole lotta wise stuff. Actually a lot of what he says echoes precisely what Marek says.  

Easwaran uses the reading of spiritual passages for meditation (see, each to their own).  On meditation in general he says:

‘Nothing is so direct, so potent, so sure… Meditation enables us to see the lineaments of our true self and to chip away the stubbornly selfish tendencies that keep it locked within, quite quite forgotten…’

And what does my quasi-guru say? He says...

‘oooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMmmmmm…’

No really, he does.  You can hear it.  Here.  Or see it. Hear.

And then he says: ‘oooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMmmmmm…

The name of God in action (I AM), which I sang monotonously many times,  making my brain generate theta waves, travelled from my mouth in all directions. But it was carried farthest by the lake surface in front of me. It couldn’t be heard by the contemporary users and guests of the Post-Camaldolite Monastery, a gem of the local historical architecture, raised in the seventeenth century on the hill of a Wigry lake island (now a peninsular), over ten kilometres away. Though sometimes I felt as if the Camaldolese monks from the past were joining my one-syllable mantra with their chants and prayers. As if the difference between the present and the past was the same as between a meditation and a prayer. The former being a wordless equivalent of the latter.’

Marek Stefanowicz in Symphonic Bridges

He says that when you sing AUM you enter ‘the universe of a quark’. And this morning, nudged by Ma.Ste. I did just that. In my study.  Just sat, chanting AUM until it became automatic, until I forgot I was doing it, the ending becoming the beginning becoming the ending becoming the... The serpent eating its tail.  And at first thoughts come up, as they do, but I just watched them and brought my mind back softly to the sound.  And then...I dunno.  Nothing and everything.  The boundaries of self dissolve.  Expansion and contraction. The universe shooting out through the endless space of a quark. Beautiful. 
Nah. Words don't do it. You gotta go there. You gotta feel it.  Okay? 

Giving away the scent of Heaven

Scent is so very important.  It’s evocative, atavistic, often unfathomable.  Which scents do you love? Which do you hate? 
Does it matter how someone smells?  Oh god, yes! Some scientists even believe that attraction lies in our personal scents being compatible with one another.  No, sillies, not Lynx clashing with Prada.  J 
It’s the same with places – the smell of a space can colour how you feel about it. All that business about freshly-brewed coffee and baking bread when you’re trying to sell a house?  Okay, so it’s a bit hackneyed now but the principle is a smart move. 

Anyhow, I’m very picky about scent and I’m even more fussy about what I slather all over my body. I don’t hold truck with dousing myself in chemicals. If I can’t afford totally natural stuff, I’d rather not have anything at all – or pop a few drops of essential oil onto sea salt and bung that in the bath.  If you read this blog regularly you’ll already know that I have a fanatical crush on ila.  Ila is Sanskrit for earth and everything in these products comes from a plant or mineral – crammed full of loveliness so there simply isn’t any space for anything synthetic. 

Ila was founded by Denise Leicester, a qualified nurse who is also trained as an aromatherapist, yoga teacher and healer.  She believes in healing energy – in ‘a higher vibration capable of facilitating profound inner change.’  Well, don’t laugh, but so do I.  So much that I wrote an entire book yacking on about it. 

Denise spent a year researching, travelling and sourcing her key ingredients with huge care. ‘Each ingredient is chosen for its spiritual attributes as well as its physical and emotional benefit,’ she says. So that included Himalayan salt crystals, Rose damascena and argan oil (and you know how I love that). 
She wanted to find farmers and growers who shared her deep, sacred love of the earth and wanted to found a company on principles  of “spiritual light and multi-level reconnection”. She calls the range ‘beyond organic’ because she doesn’t think it’s enough for a product to be merely organic – she figures the purer the source and the process, the more suffused it will be with the earth’s healing energy. 

Have I lost you?  Are you scratching your heads and whistling quietly?  If so, don’t fret – just put to one side all this woo-hoo mystical stuff and simply luxuriate in some of the most divine high-class beauty products you will find. Forget that image that may be forming in your mind of the sticky gunk you find gathering dust in the far corner of ancient New Age shops.  Oh no, sirree.  These are absolutely top-notch, beautifully packaged and presented.  And, oh, oh, oh – the scents.  

If you’re wondering (and, let’s be honest, I would be too), no, this isn’t a sponsored blog.  I just adore this stuff and want to shout about it a bit.  I’ve bored you with my favourites before so I won’t go on about them again.  I want you to try them for yourselves. But I do realise they are pricey and times are tough.  So I asked ila if they could possibly give something or other for me to pass onto you.  And, bless them, they’ve come up trumps. 

I’m off to a spa in London today (shall report, never fear) but one of you, my lovely readers, can  have his or her (I would never discriminate – rose can smell very sweet on a man!) very own ‘ila-spa-at-home kit’...  This is pretty damn gorgeous and it comprises:

Inner Peace Bath Salts – apparently suited for anyone who needs ‘greater serenity’ and pampering – softens the skin and strengthens your aura. Not bad for a bath!

Body Scrub for a Blissful Experience (argan oil, Himalayan salt crystals, rosehip, jasmine, sandalwood and damascene rose et al) – I haven’t tried this but it sounds delicious –you massage it into damp skin and then bathe.
 
Face Oil for Glowing Radiance: this is a bit of a cult product and I know exactly why. I keep a bottle on my desk and anoint myself with it probably far too often throughout the day. It makes my skin smile and cheers the heart.
 

Body Cream for Glowing Radiance (argan oil, shea butter, damascene rose and tuberose) – this stuff is pure heaven (ask Lulu).

The prize is worth just shy of £200 and I think I can only offer it to readers in the UK...(I'm checking) - but the products are available in the US and parts of Europe. 
 

To stand a chance of winning, simply tell me which scent (it could be anything) you find the most evocative – and why.  I’ll find the most fragrant member of The Bonkers House (hmm, that might take some doing) to pick the winner when I come back next week.  Also, do make sure I have a way of getting in touch with you (if you don’t have a blog). 

Oh, and if you're reading this on Facebook, you will need to comment on the actual blog, not on FB....

Mothers and gifts

I know it’s not Mother’s Day. Not yet. But I figure I’d better blog this now as I tend to get a bit emotional on the day itself. My mum died several years ago and her birthday is also coming up, so it’s a funny old time of year for me. She was so totally a spring person – up until her last illness she was always the epitome of optimism; a ‘can do’ person.

She believed in positive thought, in karma, in God, in gods, in the unseen, the ineffable, in synchronicity and miracles. She loved her children, her dogs, her garden. She adored yoga, tofu, mushrooms, watercress and gin. She listened to Bach, Enya, Loreena McKennit, Leonard Cohen and The Rolling Stones. She danced around her kitchen; she sang; she primal screamed.  She kept a copy of The Course in Miracles by her bed and devoured Rudolf Steiner. She was a sucker for sexy underwear and luxurious nighties. She always kept a glint in her eye. She had cold feet, a warm heart and a will of steel.

She left school at 14 and worked pretty well solidly all her life. She trained as a homeopath in her fifties and ran a business in her 60s and 70s. When the business crashed she merrily sold everything she owned and said ‘Ah well, nobody died. It’s just stuff.’

Having said that, she did love stuff. She was terribly vain – with reason as she was beautiful and had a cracking figure (even at 80). She loved nice clothes and adored gorgeous beauty products. Buying her presents was always a delight. I do miss that so much. So I figured, what the hell? Mum, if you’re around or about, here’s what I’d be thinking about getting you this year...

Something body-licious...  She would have adored ila-spa as she would only use totally organic products on her skin.  She would love pretty much the entire range, I think - though maybe the rose scents the most. I'd get her a couple of CDs too - she'd lap up the chants.  And probably throw in some incense - as she loved that as well.

Aromatherapy Associates was an old favourite of hers - I'd get her the skincare range as she would appreciate the natural yet powerful anti-ageing effects of their creams and oils. 
Come to think of it, she would also love Skin Science - it's a new range and their Bio Active Quicklift Mask would appeal - it's dubbed the 'Lunch break lift'. She was always in two minds about cosmetic surgery - this get-out clause would probably make her smile.

Mum felt the cold - she was a chilly vata type - so I always looked out for lovely warm scarves and cosy slippers and so on.  She would adore one of RoseBlack's gorgeous velvet-edged cashmere scarves - beautiful and warm!
These really are just the best.  I have a ton of their velvet scarves in every colour under the sun and one of these days I'm going to treat myself to one of the cashmere ones too... 

I think Mum tried every kind of natural face stuff.  She made friends with the beauty therapist who worked a few doors down from her and was her guinea-pig for every new fad going.  She would have been well into Eva Fraser's facial exercises and would have practiced assiduously - once she got into something, you couldn't pull her off it.  So I reckon this DVD from Victoria Health (one of her all-time favourite companies) would have made her smile....and grimace...and pout....
I'd probably nab her some hyaluronic acid and some HEAL cream while I was shopping there...maybe even a Duckula from the gift section.


  
She would have ADORED a Prana Mat from Fushi.  TApparently it helps in boosting the body’s natural energy flow by stimulating the body’s acupressure points. Allegedly it "wakes up" your body and directs blood flow to the organs that need it the most. The tiny lotus spikes stimulate active nerve centres and intensify the local blood flow and lymph circulation.

Yeah, essentially it's a bed of nails.  But, see, she would have loved that.  Hardcore stoic, my mum.  Actually she would have loved everything at Fushi - if you're into natural health and wellbeing, it's packed with goodies. 

Ah, how I'd love to send Mum to my favourite facialist, aromatherapist, acupuncturist and all round lovely healing person ever, Annee de Mamiel.  Annee is unbelievable.  Honestly.  She lives in NYC now and her client list is pretty well jam-packed for her visits to London but, seriously, if you can somehow sneak your way onto her couch, you will think you've died and gone to heaven early.  I would have LOVED Mum to have experienced this nourishing, healing, soul-affirming treatment.  Oh, and you come out looking ten years younger too! 
But, if you can't manage it, check out her seasonal oils - they aren't cheap but by heck they do incredible things to your skin.

A few of my favourite things

Since I’ve been moaning about my total lack of grooming and beauty nous, a fair few PRs have taken pity on me. I think it offends their sensibilities to think of someone who has just given up quite so completely. They see me as a challenge.  Or maybe they just feel really really sorry for me.  The good/bad thing about being freelance and working from home in a small rural place is that really there is no-one to notice if I just let it all hang out; if I grow a moustache and my jowls start slapping my shoulders.


But of late I have noticed myself avoiding mirrors and using my forearms to sand down wood. So I did think it was time (maybe) to make just a little effort.

You’ve already read of my adventures in tan-land. Okay, so now I’m back to vampire-white but at least I know that, should I ever find the energy again, I CAN look sunkissed and healthy.

Meanwhile, I’ve been playing with lots of beauty products. I wouldn’t normally blog about this kind of thing but, as so many of you seen to like my recommendations on Twitter, I figured I should really do some naming, cheering, blaming and shaming.

So, without further ado – these are the things I really really LOVE.

• iS Clinical Hydra-Cool serum. This stuff is pure magic. I had nasty broken capillaries under my eyes (yes, yes, I know it’s too much alcohol and too little sunscreen). Don’t ask me how but this stuff removed them. Honest, guv. Don’t blame me if it doesn’t work for you but....well, I’m a convert. 

• Origins – Never a Dull Moment skin-brightening face polisher. I mainly love this for the smell. All exotic fruits.  Yum. Basically it’s gritty and exfoliates the face, scrubs off the dead cells etc. Does a good job too. Can’t say that others don’t do it equally well but...hey, you scrub your face AND smell like a fruit daquiri (works for me).

• Aromatherapy Associates Overnight Repair Mask. You probably get it by now – I LOVE their stuff. To bits. Have been a fan of their bath and body oils for years upon years. But their skincare range is a bit of a revelation. It’s all good but this stuff is The Business. I confess I use it like night cream. Smells fab too.

• Airbase foundation. Makeup artists use this with a spray gun and I bet the results are stunning (I splash it on with my fingers - be warned, shake it first and be careful - it's very runny). It smells a bit like greasepaint but really does give mega smooth coverage. Would be too heavy for young skins I reckon but for those of us of a certain age....

• Mineralogie radiance bronzer. I really like all their mineral makeup range but this is so summery – I know I’m kidding myself but I almost feel like a 20-something festival goer with a sprinkle on my shoulders and over the nose. Yeah, I know, totally utterly deluded.

• love + art orange flower body milk. A new company using organic essential oils in their products. Orange flower is just THE feelgood scent for me and this is light and so uplifting. I keep it on my desk and pop some on my arms every so often for a boost.

• Barielle Shades nail varnish. My recession-busting beauty tip. If you’re feeling fed up (I am an expert, trust me) this is the treat for you. Cheap as chips but brings an instant smile to the face. I’m into uber-sophisticated Belly Dance (beige with a subtle shimmer) on my fingernails and Night Moves (shiny shiny silver) on my toes. Happy, happy.

The jury’s out....

At the moment I am testing Jan Marini Eyelash conditioner. My eyelashes have packed their bags and gone to the Maldives so am trying to lure them back. Apparently it takes about three months, so bear with me...


So totally didn’t do it for me

* L’Occitane’s Brightening Moisture Cream. You wipe it on and two minutes later it rubs off – in big lumps. Maybe that’s the idea but somehow I don’t think so. Perhaps they should relabel it ‘face peeling mask’...

* Daniel Sandler Retexturising Face Primer.  Maybe I'm asking too much but this promises it will neutralise my imperfections while giving foundation a fault-free base.  Hmm, I didn't notice any difference, truth to tell.

What are your absolute must-haves?  The stuff you will still shell out for when times are tough?  And what have you tried which really didn't live up to its hype?  I think my major 'what a waste of money' has to be Creme de la Mer.  Felt like cold cream to me and didn't make one iota of difference.  :(