Sweet smell of success!

Yesterday we went to the incense blending worshop and had an absolutely great time. The workshop was held in an open sided timber shelter at West Stow Anglo Saxon Village, a lovely venue – if you haven’t been there you are missing out. Although we have been to West Stow several times times before this was our first time “under the shelter”. We turned up late thanks to the A14 (sat in traffic for an hour and a quarter – not too chuffed at that but what can you do). Fortunately everyone was really nice so we just fitted right in.

Our first activity was to “get to know” the three main resins used to form the bases of incenses, this was followed by a tea break when we got to meet our lovely tutors for the day Jo and Hannah. After tea we spent a fair while encountering other “ingredients”, some exotic and some found locally. Our final session of the day was to use our newly acquired knowledge to blend an incense to our own liking which was then passed around the group for everyone to sniff and discuss. It was remarkable how different they all were and how they really reflected the different personalities of their creators. Sally and I talked about is all the way home and both felt that it had been a perfect way to spend an afternoon. When we got home we got an incense cup out and tested our new creations.

I will finish off with a quick note to say what a lovely bunch of people we met today, our fellow “students” were all very open, friendly and down to earth and as for our tutors, well, what truly lovely people they; we are looking forward to when our paths next cross.