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Val the Cookie Queen

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Dearest APJ

Just over six years ago I met Portia in a café in Vienna.  He had posted on APJ that he would touring Europe and that if anyone wanted to meet up with him then cool.  As fate would have it, Vienna was a part of his trip.  Most of you readers know the story.

There is no doubt in my mind that we knew each other in a former life.   This did not feel like a first meeting.  During the course of our non-stop chatter I asked jokingly if he wanted me to write a post or two on APJ.  He said sure, twice a month, alternate Tuesdays.  Boom.  I became Cookie Queen on the spot, and we went and bought a bottle of Coromandel to cement the deal.

VIENNA 2014

It would not be an exaggeration to say that blind date changed my life.  From meeting Vero to having my radio show, and so much in-between.  I have covered a lot of it in my years of blogging.  I am me, Portia is she, and we pretend nothing.  We are in real life as we are in our posts, except louder.   And that has been the key to the wonderful community that Portia founded here on APJ.   It brought out the real in everyone.

I could blab on forever, sobbing into my Shalimar but no!  A time to build up, a time to break down.   Shit happens and we need to make way for more.

LONDON 2018

I thank you all for the love shown to me, for helping me to become the person that I am now.  Perfume is the link, but never the whole story.   I am not sad that I won’t be writing about perfume so much, I lost a part of that joy when Vero died.  Not the pleasure of fragrance, but the desire to really write about it.  Moving onto working with Hiram Green will be next thing and that really excites me.  Once a junkie, always a junkie huh?

I am not gone.  I will still be writing my Strange Tales on A Bottled Rose, and staying  perfume themed on my Instagram @armadilloscookiequeen.    And if you have time you can tune into my live radio shows, first and third Fridays of the month.  The livestream link is always in my Instagram bio.

I thank my family for putting up with me.  For sniffing my wrists a million times, for patiently accepting the amount of time it actually took to prepare and write a post.  For  ignoring my tears and tantrums and screaming about deadlines.

Portia.  I love you.

Ciao APJ.

Goodbye Bussis.

CQ. 

I do have one more Tuesday in February and I have never missed a deadline and have no intention of doing so now.  I am gonna dig out a bunch of my favourite photos and just post them.  xxx