Not the Guerlain Bee. And other current stuff.

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Val the Cookie Queen

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Hey there APJ.

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I was in Prague last week.  My husband (mental age 23, real age just turned 60) and we went away to celebrate his big birthday in peace.  We rode more than 120 km on old bikes through the streets of Prague, discovering the beautiful city, especially fun over the cobblestones. That was all in 2 days.  As we cycled round we came across a Guerlain store, lovely windows, full of bee bottles and the parfum bottles.  I am not a true Guerlain girl and am just not interested in the tons of news stuff, including the Aqua Allegoria series (pastel colours!) nor the bottles that they are in.  If the bottle sucks you can be sure I am not gonna be interested.  I was recently talking to The Candy Perfume Boy about how incredibly important packaging is…..  Talking of CPB, I hope you have all listened to the recent Fume Chat podcast, it is back.   I did get however get excited about seeing Jicky in the window, and decided to return the next day to go in and try all three versions of it.  I had never tried it.   Yeah, yeah ,whatever.  The SA was marvelous and I sprayed hefty doses of the EdT, EdP, and the Parfum, and left.  I rather liked the parfum, but not enough to fork out the dosh.  I could not detect one single tiny hint of lavender in any of them, and would much rather drown myself in Chanel`s Boy, and I have Shalimar which is Jicky enough for me.  And anyway,  I have my own bee.

Not the Guerlain Bee.  And other current stuff.

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My Mad Aunty Tracey and Mardi Gras!!

Hey Hey All,

It’s been excellent fun around here with Aunty Tracey staying over the Mardi Gras period. We have had an awesome weekend.

Thursday and Friday were all about getting the apartment rented and the tenants moved in. It was a couple of long days of bed building, light fittings and organising the troops. Whoever said that all success takes a community is 100% right. Without all the help of my friends and extended family I would be lost.

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Saturday afternoon 5 of the courtesy Aunts (non blood relation Aunts) that were all in the same Nursing class as my Mum and 5 of us (Alice, Jin, Kath, Matt & I) went to Chinese at the Liu Rose in Concord. It is a fabulous place and we had the most magnificent banquet with way too much food and we all got a little boozy too. It was a terrific afternoon with the Aunties reminiscing and my friends laughing at their stories. From left to right: Aunties Margie, Tracey, Anne, Judy and Norma. These women have woven in and out of my life since the day I was born and all are so special. There are some more that couldn’t make it because of geography or death. It was also really fun to bring my two worlds together and my buddies all had a ball too.

Then at night Jin and I took Aunty Tracey to see the Mardi Gras Parade. We bought seatys in the GlamStands where there is a bar, food vendors and toilets. There was a light sprinkle of rain and as the parade started the heavens cleared and we were treated to one of the world’s most fun and spectacular night parades. Thousands of people marched or rode in trucks this year and the themes were Gay Marriage Equality, Acceptance and HIV/AIDS Awareness. As always there were fabulous gleaming bodies, muscular and otherwise, rainbow families, for the first time the Australian Military Gays and Lesbians marched and GLITTER!! It was a really good length and we were left sated but not bored.

mardigras_1_17l5cqs-17l5cqvPhoto Stolen Yahoo

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945913-20130214-mardi-gras-2012Photo Stolen DailyTelegraph

art-Lifesavers-mardi-gras-2012-420x0 Photo Stolen SydneyMorningHerald

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A few of our buddies were working on the parade and afterwards we grabbed them and Aunty Tracey and we went to McDonalds. It was DELICIOUS!!

What fragrance did we all wear? Aunty Tracey had Bombay Bling by Neela Vermeire Creations, Jin wore Bottega Veneta and I wore Ubar by Amouage. Needless to say we smelled AH MAY ZING!!

Back to real life from tomorrow I hope.

Portia xx