Tall and elegant hollyhocks
against a honey-coloured stone wall
Such vibrant blooms and swollen buds full of promises.
HOLLYHOCKS AND HONEY-COLOURED HOUSES
The houses
and the hollyhocks are still there, as beautiful as ever, whenever I return, but
I should really start at the beginning.
When I was
a young working girl, I used to go by train to my workplace. It was all so
charming as I lived in the country and the train was accordingly old-fashioned
with wooden seats and the ticket-master smiling and friendly. The train went
rather slowly and stopped at every single village station and there was plenty
of time to enjoy the passing countryside.
Several
times a week, I found myself in the same carriage as an older gentlemen. He was
tall and elegant in a understated way. Silver white hair, impeccably combed, a
debonair moustache and well-chosen clothes with an eye for colour coordination.
He wore a panama hat in the summer with a black band. That was my favourite!
During the
whole of the month of May, it has always been a sort of tradition, I like to
have a bar of soap which is perfumed with Lily of the Valley. Accordingly, I
have a very small bottle of Muguet perfume which I dab on my wrists and at
the base of my throat.
It was one
of those mornings in May, that the elegant old gentleman stepped onto the train
and sat in the free seat opposite me. The windows of the carriage were open and
my travelling companion said to me: "What an amazing scent of Lily of the
Valley, is it blooming already?" As other people got on the train, he
suddenly lent forward slightly and asked me if I happened to be wearing the
perfume! "Yes", I said and we both laughed! From that day onwards we
always said hello to each other and enjoyed exchanging a few words.
I often
wondered where the gentleman on the train lived and one day I found out. As I was coming back from an early evening
walk, I saw him take a key out of his pocket and enter a house in my favourite
honey-coloured stone with hollyhocks growing tall and elegantly against the
walls. Such perfect flowers for this gentleman, I thought.
I have since moved away from this beautiful area and
my daily trips to work in a little country train, but whenever I visit the
villages that are part of my childhood and young adulthood, and see those
honey-coloured stone houses adorned with hollyhocks, I remember with much
fondness the older gentlemen and send up a special thought to him wherever he
may be on his continuing journey beyond this earthly existence.
***
The twentieth century writer J. B. Priestley wrote of Cotswold stone that –
“The truth is, that it has no colour that can be described.
Even when the sun is obscured and the light is cold, these walls are still faintly warm and luminous, as if they knew the trick of keeping the lost sunlight of centuries glimmering about them.”
Read about
Cotswold Stone
The Lily of the Valley tradition
during the month of May.
The name of this perfume is called Diorissimo
Doesn't that have a lovely ring to it?
