This was written some weeks ago now, but the fragrance lingers on:

A planned morning out to Cheltenham Town Centre to meet my very good friend Valerie ( why do I always think of Steve Winwood when I say her name ) and we headed to the Wilson, which normal people would call the Cheltenham Art Gallery. Re branded with the Wilson name after they realised that people simply can’t cope with three words of descriptive text. Please don’t think they named it after Harold Wilson, that would bring a shudder to many Cheltonians as they clumsily describe themselves with the one word.No, it’s named after one of the explorers who lost his life with Scott of the Antarctic, a Cheltenham public school product who lost his life in the doomed adventure, not a Huddersfield Grammar School educated Prime Minister who was in power when the Beatles changed everyone’s perception of pop music.

We’d planned to take in the exhibition after a coffee, but settled into the deserted gallery cafe for far too long and lost the urge to wander through it. I’ll go another time and miss out the coffee.

We paddled along to the Farmer’s Market on the Promenade, and went our separate ways after. I headed for the oasis of the middle classes: The John Lewis store, where I wanted advice on a couple of products. I’ve been here before and it has been tricky in the past, but this time I found a chap eager to help. I had excellent advice and left with a feeling that I should perhaps buy a lottery ticket. Could this be my lucky day. Wandering to the exit I wandered through the perfume and aftershave department, and feeling less that fragrant thought a quick test spray might be to my benefit, and to the benefit of others who might come within my orbit in the next hour or so. It’s been a few hours now and I still smell like Portuguese Wood, the flavour I chose to place my bet on. I’m not sure if it’s supposed to smell like a Portuguese Wood after a forest fire or not.

Drifting out on a cloud of fragrance it occurred to me that someone had a job inventing these names. They try and choose names that resonate and have a slightly glamorous feel. I wonder if anyone has been brave enough to name one of these bottles of chemicals after a long night shift down the pit? “Late Shift dant Pit” has a ring about it, put it into French and you have a winner: “Au Fond de la Mine”

I determined to go back to the Farmers Market and support local farmers by buying the odd thing or two, some lovely vegetables and a couple of vegetable samosas, the latter a locally made product. Samosa Farms are thin on the ground around here. Then to a stall selling Portuguese Custard Tarts where I apologised for giving off a fragrance that might remind the stallholder of home. I bought one that was slightly burned at the edges and was assured that this was the way the Portuguese like them. Yeah right! Portuguese Sales Talk.