From Sabon With Love

One of my favourite feelgood, romantic comedy movies is Love Actually, and one of many lovely scenes in that movie is when Rowan Atkinson as a salesclerk is gift-wrapping a Christmas gift for Alan Rickman. It takes ages and it's just wonderful, since the wrapping and all the thought that has gone into it really is half of the joy in getting - and giving! - gifts. Dried flowers, tissue-papers, silk ribbons and garnish, oh I just love that!

However if you're in a hurry - or perhaps a man? - you don't seem to appreciate all that careful thought and work that has gone into the wrapping. Even if Rickman in the movie has a hidden agenda with the gift and doesn't want his wife to see it and perhaps therefore gets slightly more agitated than usual over the lengthy gift-wrapping process, I kind of think he symbolizes most men and their views on gift-wrapping. Just put it in a box and a stupid bag, will you! Sort of being the very essence of many, most (?), men's attitude towards shopping, the studious shopping hate.

Which is just as silly as many women's overenthusiastic views on shopping, the over consuming attitude. I admit I like a bit of shopping, when I have the time and money. But not for the shopping itself, I don't absolutely must, or can, spend money every time I'm out and about. I don't have to spend hours in the shops on weekends, I most certainly don't like crowds at sales or otherwise, I like to think I am quite discerning when it comes to most things I shop too. I haven't always been and I could probably do better. To be honest, hrm, sometimes a whole lot better.

But I suppose you could look at that as a work in progress, can't be done overnight, every small step is a step back from, when you look at the big perspective of things, useless overconsumtion. At least I actually have a deliberation with myself every single time I'm about to buy something, sometimes I step back from buying others I don't. Sometimes I *absolutely* need to have something, others I can safely say I absolutely don't, like those spur-of-the-moment-on-holiday-things. Ah such ridiculous things we might buy when away on holiday...

Not always, sometimes just lovely, n e c e s s a r y things though. Like these gorgeous bath products from Sabon I found in Amsterdam - and just look at that cute wrapping! Which took quite some time, and wasn't all that necessary and made M go rather Alan-Rickman-in-Love-Actually... But made me happy. Of course. The products sort of remind me of Lush, but the overall impression is more sophisticated. Home with me came soap by weight with a simply divine green grass scent and a lovely tropical scented body scrub. Both are now on the waitinglist in my bathroom for usage...