Flying London Visit

I wrote a whole post asking for jasmine perfume recommendations – because while I have a huge, amazing jasmine vine in my garden, I realised I have no jasmine-centric perfumes in my collection. I know I did in the past but I don’t know what happened to them. So, please make some recs in the comments. I’m after skanky, not soapy.

But, after rereading, it got ditched and replaced with this, a vague, meandering commentary on my spur-of-the-moment visit up-country. I actually did the ticket purchase last Friday and went up Saturday morning early. Sometimes these sorts of things happen…

London was due massive thunderstorms overnight Friday into midday Saturday and Mother Nature certainly had her way.

Anyway, I got a bit damp and did some perfume and other bits.

Note to self: doing London on a Saturday in July is sort of silly. Way too many people in central London. Way.Too.Many. Also, I seem to have reached my time in life when I want 2-3 days to do these sorts of trips and I need to stay over for a night or two. Lesson learned.

But, what did I do?

A bit of food, a couple of small perfume attempts, a lot of walking. I am rubbish at following the map app on my phone and get lost fairly easily.

Anyway, food. First, I visited a Japanese crepe cake shop. Very Instagram, but I was curious.

These are cakes made up of thin layers of crepe with filling. Very gooey.

I got rose (really rather nice gentle flavour) and matcha. Now, matcha is a thing I’ve gotten curious about recently after a friend talked about drinking the powder mixed with hot water in the morning. It’s supposed to be very healthy.

I actually drink green tea in the morning. Hojicha, which is a lower caffeine version.

But matcha. I’ve now tried an iced latte version and a hot one, and I’m still not sure about this. Tastes of hay to me (yes, I’ve nibbled hay but not in decades). The cake is very sweet and has a slightly strange after-taste. The slice will get finished but I won’t go looking for more.

Anyone into matcha?

I also stopped at Pierre Herme for macarons. PH gets a lot of love but I’m not sure if these are superior to anything else I’ve tried.

After sugar, I did Liberty to try the new basement level perfume salon. I ended up trying the January Guerlain peach release, Pêche Mirage, from the Arts et Metière line: peach, blackcurrant, saffron, osmanthus, leather, amber and sandalwood (notes Fragrantica). With that list I should love this, but the opening was peach and … fish. Really. So deeply a no go. A complete fail. If someone else has tried this and it has worked please comment ‘cause it was actually shocking how unpleasant this was on me.

Also, Liberty’s salon is not brilliant (the rest of the shop is). Too hot, not enough seating, really really needs a ventilation system and a bit of AC. Harrods 5^th floor is much much more worthwhile.

I then ate lunch at the Marylebone Ottolenghi deli. I’ve written about Ottolenghi delis in the past. If you find yourself in London and want lunch highly recommend. The food is very good (I had cold grilled salmon, hummus and orzo with pesto) and the people watching superb.

Post this I tried to visit Perfumer H but their shop was deserted and by that time I couldn’t be bothered to ring bell, be admitted, be the only one sniffing, etc.

So, I slowly made my way back to Paddington station to go home.

In my post about my trip to Europe last September I commented that some cities are clearly way over-touristed now, meaning historic centres are no longer pleasant. I’m becoming concerned that this is true of London. There are always things to want to do or see in places like Covent Garden, but I think one is better off with Primrose Hill, Hampstead, the area near Boro Market, etc, etc. Good shopping, good food, great things to see, much less busy. Why do we as beings all gravitate to the same areas and things to see when travelling?

Pics: Pexels and wiki parfums