XHM2 - Extraordinarily High Maintenance: the story

10 Scents’ Worth

The stories

I never make a scent without a story, and with my crowdfunding project, they came from near and far.

So in order of how close my inspiration was…Here's number one.

1 XHM2 – Extraordinarily High Maintenance 

The story

I made this one for myself originally. I had this idea about using all my favourite materials, the ones I love most – all natural ones – just to see what would happen. This is not the best way to make a scent. Imagine what it would be like if you wanted to cook a meal with masses of expensive foods and nothing to lighten it. The same kind of thing happens.

 It was dense and flat and not much fun, but I kept it to see if it would improve over time. Well, yes. But it just became dense, flat and smooth.

I decided to open it up with some airiness and lightness. To do this, you bung in some synthetic molecules that stop in sinking like a lead balloon. It’s a bit like remembering to put the sodium bicarbonate in your cupcakes. That’s baking soda, for everyone who fell asleep in chemistry. With the synthetic chemicals they taste great; without them – flat, dense and sticky. It’s the same with scent. So it became XHM2. One half posh and heavy, one half light and lovely but a little airheaded. Put them together and leave it long enough and they blend to form something halfway decent, IMHO.

The materials

It’s got cedrat, coriander, cardamom, pink peppercorn, pink grapefruit, raspberry leaf absolute, oakmoss, opoponax, vanilla, rose geranium, rose absolute, davana, hyacinth and vanilla.

To open it up, I added cedramber and bergamot plus a dash of gamma undecalactone, the peachy one.

Duty, deadines, determination and discipline

Deadlines. We deal with them all the time. They approach steadily, never by themselves, and we have to hit them before they crash and get us into trouble. I like to imagine them as like the little green aliens in Space Invaders games. The longer you leave them they faster they approach and the more they proliferate. When you've got someone chasing you, or a meeting report with a date and your initial written beside it, you know what you're dealing with. They want it by Friday, you aim to get it there on Thursday night (or if it's me, more likely Saturday morning because unless I'm given strict guidelines, 4a.m. still counts as Friday night).

What about the projects that don't have set deadlines, the ones you can put off for almost ever? How do you make sure that they ever get finished? At the risk of beginning to sound like a Victorian moralist, last time I wrote about duty and now I'm thinking about discipline.

Now I'm cutting myself loose from my biggest client to do my duty, I'm going to have to set my own goals, impose my own some deadlines then make sure that I want to hit them. We can use time management techniques to sort out which ones to do first, or to delegate or ditch entirely. We can get ourselves into good habits. We all have some of those: I wouldn't dream of going out without brushing my teeth or locking the door; I always recycle everything the council take; I even bring my plastic back from my holidays.

But to make things happen, you really have to want to make them happen. Without the determination, it all fades away. Finishing off books, for example, everything that you have on your "wouldn't it be nice..." list. How do we set and stick to our own deadlines when no-one is chasing us, or won't pay us if it doesn't get finished? Now that all my big projects are going to be like that for a year at least, can I be relied on to chase myself up? What's my incentive to keep shooting down the aliens?

It's not so much about the small stuff with me; I procrastinate on a grand scale. I take on to much big stuff, then stretch myself beyond any reasonable limit, filling my screen up with thumping aliens and buzzing about like a bluebottle trying to knock them all out before they invade. (And if you don't know what it's like to play Space Invaders, go here www.freespaceinvaders.org. Or even if you do.) In the early 1980s, I did get quite good at Space Invaders, up to 14 screens. You do it by keeping a cool head and a sense of perspective and by wasting loads of time getting good at it. Probably a bad example of discipline.

It's a question of deciding what's important. Then getting on with it. I've got my list (see earlier topics) and I'll make myself a future mood board. (Of which more soon.) From May to July I've got to spend time clearing out old projects that I really will never finish, so that they don't weigh me down with guilt.

Talking of which, if you're anywhere near W13, put 15th May in your diary. I'm having a car boot sale, except in my own front room and just for nice people. I'll be making coffee.

Discipline. Yes. Let's impose a little and bring myself back to the point. From May 2010 to April 2011, the year I've given myself to get things done, I need to get things done. There's definitely going to be some room for slacking about faffing and fiddling, because it's in the faffing and fiddling times that you have your best ideas, as long as you've been taking the time to observe, contemplate, consider and plan. And talking of plans, I've got one, but I'll keep it flexible, because all the best plans should adapt to fit the circumstances.

As stated in many other places on paper and in the ether, I plan to have a building where I can run writing workshops and yoga classes and where people can come for a good creative think, and a decent coffee. So let's see how we get along, shall we?

Duty: time for rehabilitation

Duty is underrated. It was pretty popular in the 19th Century, then it went out of favour while we were busy achieving our potential, pursuing our goals and getting in touch with our inner selfishness. As I find myself in a position where I have a bit of duty to do, I've decided that I might as well apreciate the opportunity rather than resent it. That's all very well but one problem with doing your duty is that it can turn out tobe a bit of a drain on your resources. Last year was bonkers. I spent half my life on the train to Sunderland, visiting my mother in hospital (after a series of falls) and rehabilitation homes (where she passed all her tests to show she could look after herself at home - but couldn't), then working with my sister to get her a place in a marvellous care home in York, organising the house move and working out what to do with the contents of an eight-roomed family house. The other half was spent on trains to Poole, down to Lush, the people to whom I've dedicated most of my work life since 1996. With no time in between to do anything but sleep, our house looks like it's been burgled by a gang of monkeys who failed to find the bananas despite looking everywhere.

So here I am, doing my best to be a hard-working creative sort, writing for a living and filling my spare time with suitably mind-expanding projects, then I discover that I've got an old person's life to take care of. No choice really. There's a pile of paperwork to do, the family home to tidy up and rent out, and a never ending list of apparently insignificant items to buy from mail order companies and have delivered to York, because if I don't, I get reminded at least once a week and several other people call me to explain that my mother has told them I've forgotten to buy her important items from mail order. (To be fair, I share this chore with my sister, who also gets the day to day duties.)

So now I've now got two lives to administer (when I'm already somewhat behind with the running of my own), I also discover that I can't fit in a job that regularly takes over evenings and weekends.

Children, start saving up now. When I was 23 I embarked upon a savings scheme; this means that in a couple of weeks time I can reclaim a small pile of cash that will buy me a year off (as long as I only spend money on food and bills). Yes, I ought to save it for when I'm 80 and I retire, but I might not last until then, and besides, I need it now. If you're 23, the moment where you'll have to step in and look after your parents might seem like a long way off, but believe me, your life is over in a flash. So start saving. You'll be able to take a year off work too. I've no idea how I'll get on without a job; I've been working hard to impress people since the age of four.

Tracking back a bit, one of the most difficult parts will be the bit that involves not buying anything. I haven't done that since I was four either.

So anyway, back to duty and where it fits into 4160Tuesdays.

While I've been saving up, I've also been collecting stuff, way too much of it. I've got stuff to paint pictures, to make clothes, to listen to, to watch, to make jewellery, to write with, to write books in, to write letters on, to read, to practise yoga with, to wear, to scent myself with, to decorate myself, to burn, to plant and just to look at and admire. I've got about twice as much of all of this stuff as I've got space for. So as well as getting rid of it - by eBay, freecycle, charity shops and generally using it up and wearing it out - I'll be pulling my socks up and doing things I've been meaning to do for ages. (And lots more yoga or I'll go bananas.)

My plan is to report here regularly.. Until 30th April I'm still working for Lush. (The boss has kindly said that once I feel that my duty is done I can call him and go back there, which makes the leap less frightening. Say what you like about safely nets; I think that they make you more adventurous.) After that, when I've handed over editorship of my precious Lush Times to the admirable Harry Blamire, it's six months tying up loose ands and six months unravelling a few beginnings.

For the 52 Tuesdays from May '10 to April '11 I'll see if I can create a new system, set up a way to earn a living at the same time as doing my duty as a daughter. There are lots of us in this boat; how do we earn a living while we run around after our parents? A generation ago, when one half of most partnerships didn't work, it wasn't such a problem. Your mum looked after your gran (or both grans). Now we both have to earn a living, what's supposed to happen? I'm starting to find out.

Just as working mothers hire nannies to look after the kids, working children hire carers to deal with their parents. These are new problems, and employers haven't got the rules in place to deal with them yet. You can't take a morning off to take your mother to the hospital. My sister and I are both self-employed with working partners. How else would we be able to do this?

Duty. It's got to be done. But the mortgage has to be paid. Not everyone can take time off to sort these things out and I thank my dear departed dad for bossing me into saving at an early age. He knew a thing or two about duty. If he hadn't saved up from the age of 23, my mother wouldn't have been able to live in the beautiful place she does now. I'll be letting you know how it works out.

(By the way, if you're looking for a place to live when you're old, get your name down on the list for Lamel Beeches, the Joseph Rowntree Housing Trust home in York. Joanne and the team are the world's best. Bar none.)