I was up in the town of Wooler last weekend.
One of my favourite little shops, called Florin, sits perkily upon the high street there...
I was looking for some little bijoux, giftettes, for four ladies at work. Two of my dearest friends hit the Big 5-0 recently, and two colleagues are about to take early severance from the Civil Service, (the relentless march to get staff numbers down continues unabated), and I wanted to mark these special occasions with a little offering...
Florin is a little bit of an art gallery for local artisans, a pretty little gift shop and also mingles its shabby-chic wares with affordable bits and pieces from the antiques markets of the world, well from across the county, if not the world...
It is a while since I was able to visit Florin, owing to my back problems and inability to get oot and aboot, as we say here oop north!
(Picture of Wooler during flood waters last year...)
So I stumbled into the shop doorway, while doing so almost falling on top of a lovely, sweet octagenarian kind of lady, who was seated, with a glass of water, by the door being soothed by the cool afternoon air...
The shop owner was at yer actual shop owner's usual spot, behind the counter, noticing customers and chatting away to another lady, her assistante I shall call her, who was frou-frouing the displays...
Getting over my almost-manslaughter of what turned out to be the assistante's mother, I wandered up two steps into to the back of the shop, where I gauged there was a little more room for manoeuvre, to look for the petites trinkettes that would make my journey worthwhile...
I was stood, standing, about to knock over a display of assorted kitchenalia, using only my voluminous, wrinkled, multi-coloured, swirling summer-skirt as ballast, when the shop owner waltzed past me out towards the back-yard portal...
"Oooooohhhhhh!", she exclaimed... "What is that smell?"
Fretting, as I usually do, that I'd overdone it on the Eau de Chatspiss, or trod in something cow-pat-shaped on my wander through fields, like the country lass-turned-Milkmaid that I am, I stopped and turned...
Dramatically, I thought...
"Ummmmmm?" I mumbled, meaningfully...
(Has Fhina told you yet, that her hearing is awful unless she can see your lips move?
I think I lip-read, although I've never officially been taught...
If I'm at the hairdresser's and, for some reason, I'm wearing my bins/geps/glasses, I cannot hear a word of what the coiffeuse is saying to me...
Sometimes life is full of treasure like that...)
"Your perfume, it's really lovely what is it?", she continued...
"Come and sniff this customer!", she called out to the front of the shop - To anybody listening...
I waited, as the retinue clambered through, nostrils flaring like Kenny Williams, or if you're of a more literary bent, Edward Rochester's horse.
"It's 'Jo Malone'", I stumbled... "Pomegranate Noir".
I then did a little poncy waftette of my body, so the attached lady could take a sniff of my pongeteria on the air, as it were... I was hoping at that point that I'd been liberal with my Dove deodorant that morning, for the day was warm, and that they could smell nothing more than the sainted scented parfum on my person...
"OOhhh, yes - Definitely Jo Malone", she said... "Don't worry about getting the customer to write the name down", she chided. "I know of it, and I'll look it up on t'Internet for you", she offered her manager... "They do lovely candles as well, don't they?", she chimed to me...
"But they're reeeaalllly expensive!", we both uttered simultaneously.
By now, I was feeling a little warm at all this attention from women...
La Fhina is a bit of a shrinking (and occasionally shrieking!) violet with strangers, I'll have you know... And she likes to pass unnoticed wheree'er she can.
I tried to make a joke of it,(as I do most things...), for my errands still had to be run, and GJ would be driving up at any moment, revving the engine like Jensen Button, and expecting me to be at the front of the shop, laden with my anticipated parcelettes, ready for our onward journey...
Time waits for no man, they say... Neither does my husband...
I explained..."...Only my husband said he'd be back in 15 minutes to pick me up, as there's so little parking nearby, and I'll have to tell him that I've been delayed, 'coz I've been too busy being sniffed by ladies...!"
How did that sound, my bloggy nose-gays...
Not good, I know. I could hear the merriment tinkling among the retinue as I slouched off down the street with my giftette-bags full of the great and the good...
